I picked this book up because I had heard good thing about it. People seemed to enjoy this book a lot, so I assumed that this book is good. And I genially did....at least the first half of it. The second half of it ruined everything for me. I just expected a lot more from this story and what it could offer me. Instead it gave me undeveloped world, one dimensional characters and a really weird female empowerment definition.
Let´s start with
world :
Futuristic world that has all sorts of cool weapons, machines, internet, media. Like our world right now with just more developed war crafts. The ideology in other hands is old fashioned. How people treat women especially. At least this is what I understood.
This idea is amazing, it´s just that this world is so under developed, that most of the time you don´t understand why characters act or react the way they do. Why does this system work this way? What are Chrysalises exactly? Why are we in a war with Hunduns? Why does our main character get a way with everything even though other smaller characters would of died for the same thing? How come our female protagonist can just do stuff without consequences? A lot of thing were just not logically answered. We can´t just push past thing with an explanation that she is a main character.
What I liked
Characters
Wu Zetian: At first She seemed so cool, like I wanted to look up to her. However, it all went downhill as the story went along. What at the beginning felt like a strong characteristics, became her flaws at the end. Her not being afraid to voice her opinions and thought or straight out verbally fight with other, became her just being rude, unappreciated and venomes. She is portrayed as a strong role model for female empowerment does not sit right with me, because her way of fixing thing is just being verbally rude and physically fighting others, causing more problems than good.
Her wanting to become a concubine-pilot to avenge her big sister was a good motive, but execution was .............. not so good... We never learn who Zetians sister really was as a person. We just know that she was a pilot before and died because of the male pilot. We never learn what type of relationship Zetian and her sister had. We are just on the way to murder the male pilot. And it comes so easily. She just gets accepted, she just gets picked by the same pilot her sister was with, she just magically overpowers him when they are supposed to fight together, she just kills him so easily without any training. His death comes so fast without any buildup. We don´t know him as a character. We don´t know why we are supposed to hate him, because we don´t even know if he really killed Zetians sister. We just kill him and we are not even quarter into the book.
Her entire character is just hating people. It is just not men, it´s also women. One of the world strong point is that women are below men, they have to please men and guide them and if needed then sacrifice themselves for men. And that could of been very strong point to discus because it´s a topic we face today in our own life's. Not everyone, not everywhere but it still exists. The book handles it a .......not handling way. Like women are treated like shit by men, killed by men they are like nothing without men. Zetian is like no more killing women and is ready to fight for it but ends up killing women by herself???? Like I am not making this up. What happened. How did we go from trying to stand up for women to killing them??
Last point is that ever since she killed the pilot, she just lost control over herself. She became power hungry, she was just using people, she turned so dark in the end that it is difficult to understand her motives and actions, losing the lovability she had at the beginning.
Li Shimin: The typical "bad boy". The misunderstood, with a tragic background, angry, violent, biggest and strongest, mad at everyone but our protagonist. And the only person that could help him is our female character. There is not a lot to say about him, because there was nothing really written about him. I just don´t get how did he fell for Zetian. Like she hated him and she was the worst towards him and he just fell for her, because she is a match for him in power. If he was just more present and more developed he would of been the best character in the book. I definitely liked him better that Zetian.
Gao Yizhi: the opposite of Shimin in characteristics, soft, lovable, tender, kind, rich kid that has not seen the world. Him being the soft boy, I just don´ t know how he fell for Zetian either. The polar opposites. But the love is so strong that he goes against everything just to be with her, even so that he killed his father. Like I get that his father was a horrible person but that was just the most un Yixhi thing he could of done. My biggest problem with him was that he was always the healer, the kind, the one that saw good. So him becoming a murderer for Zetian and changing his demeanor, and supporting Zetian when she was in the worst headspace she could of ever been. Like he was on the same level with her and I just don´t understand.
Plot:
The main issue about this book is that it doesn´t have a one main point, it has several. We are jumping from goal to goal. And since achieving them is so easy, it does not feel rewarding or satisficing. It makes everything bland and boring even.
There were more Zetian monologs about how bad the system is and how cruel the world is to her then everything else. She is so angry at the world and the people in there that it´s painful to read at point. Like I said before, there were good point to discuss and expand, but the author didn´t take the change or just didn´t know how to write out her ideas.
What I liked:
I liked the overall idea of this book. Using the Chinese history as inspiration was a fresh breath of air. I liked the core of this story. I just like what this book was trying to be.
The love triangle. I did not expect it but this was great twist to the story.
Overall I personally don´t really recommend this book but I do see that some people really enjoy and like this, so it really is about preference. If you liked this good for you, I am happy that you did. If you didn´t like this, then you didn´t like this, and that´s just how it is.
