This is so close to a 5 star for me. Honestly I might come back and change it later, the only reason it didn’t make it was that the pace of part 1 and beginning of part 2 were so slow to me. I dragged through them, but once I reached part 3 I could not put this down. Kuang has such beautiful and impactful writing. The realism of the war and how fast and terrible it can be is captured so perfectly. The journey of finding ones identity, and the power of addictions. How complicated feelings can be. She is an amazing author. I am devastated and can’t imagine how the third book will end.

Not the biggest fan. The fmc was described as being this strong woman who learned to deal with pain and survive the world, then through the entire book that information was thrown away and she acted as if she never even dealt with a papercut before. The world building for this book was nearly nonexistent, I was so confused on even the setting and time period this was set at. Then at nearly the end of the book they dropped huge lore and don’t expand on it at all. I will say the emotional impact for this book was written extremely well. I found myself brought near tears at multiple points and loved this book for being able to do that. In short, I don’t plan on reading the second book but it was a ride.