This is one of those books where you have no idea where the story is going (I guess you could call it character-driven?). The premise is incredibly intriguing and atmospheric. It’s slow to start, but by the end everything comes together beautifully in a way that feels cohesive and meaningful.

The writing and world-building are truly distinctive. The novel blends folklore, science fiction, and cultural storytelling in a way that feels so original and compelling. That said, it tackles very heavy and disturbing themes, so checking content warnings beforehand might be a good idea.

Trigger Warnings: rape, incest, sexual assault, pedophilia, pregnancy, abortion.

While the series continues to suffer from a somewhat bloated cast, there's a good amount of payoff of the B plot with some interesting highlights of character strengths. I appreciate the moments of getting to learn more about the core and B cast alike, but at times it feels like it struggles to either push forward with the urgency the plot demands or stay true to its roots. Nonetheless, I so loved seeing the Canaries and Kabru in their element I'm giving it a high score.

the action continues to grow and the stakes are higher!

we see gero, who is still on a mission to meet women who can be a potential wife and produce an heir to his infamous clan, in a different role—he’s more confident, sociable, and daring in this volume.

i adored seeing gero slowly come out of his shell with the help of his marriage adviser kinosaki. i’m already rooting for a certain someone to steal his heart 🙈

the more action we get, the more i’m seeing crazy loopholes with gero’s own abilities but yknow what? it’s fine LMAO i’m just a witness to the strength and street smarts of the poison clan’s young master 🙂‍↕️

unfortunately, you might only understand my choice in emojis if you read this book, and no, i will not elaborate.

the art of prophecy is a humorous, light-hearted novel that (imo) could even potentially cross into the cozy genre, if not for the fact that people are dying every 2 pages, in unfortunately gruesome detail. at first glance, this book was what i (mostly) look for in fantasy. multiple povs, an exploration of multiple religious/belief systems and the interaction between religion and politics, prophecies, badass women with sick weapons and fighting skills, and lousy men who get their ass kicked every other page. from the very beginning, the humor is very present (occasionally a bit too much for my personal taste), and the set up of the narrative to come was done well.

the world building and the lore was pretty interesting. we mainly follow the conflict between two peoples; the zhuun and the katuia. the nomadic, nature-oriented, collectivistic society of the katuia was a beautiful contrast to the industrial, capitalist society of the zhuun. i found the similarities and differences of the two peoples to be quite interesting, though the narrative does little to explore this point.

one thing i will say, however, is that this plot is very strikingly similar to the mongolian conquest of china in the 13th century. and, while i admittedly am not knowledgeable in the intricate details of it, the katuia's way of life (katuia people are described as multiple nomadic tribes who were united by the "eternal khan" - mongolia was also multiple nomadic tribes, unified by genghis khan), the resemblance between zhuun and china (names, foods, and other cultural references), the fact that most of their wars/conflicts happened at the borders between their nations, really really reinforces that this book (and trilogy), is based off of real, historical events. and genuinely, this usually doesn't bother me with most historical fantasy, but i literally could not stop thinking about genghis khan the entire time i was reading this book 😭

to me, the persistent, and sometimes over-the-top humor was, in part, the undoing of this book. there were some pretty heavy themes in this book. 3 out of the 4 main characters that you see the povs of are women, and therefore, we get a look into the rampant misogyny during this time. however, when every time something misogynistic or sexist happens, rather than exploring the characters' reaction to it, or the bigger, social/systemic forces at play, we just get an angry/frustrated joke and the character more or less brushes it off. it's painfully obvious that the author is a man attempting to write from the perspective of women. this also happens when anything more serious/severe occurs. a joke is made, therefore switching the tone to a humorous/lighthearted one, and then we end up moving onto the next event. as this continued to happen, i found myself less and less motivated to read further. despite the actual plot moving forward (with scenes that should've, in all honesty, been full of tension), the lack of seriousness throughout the book made the stakes feel extremely low, and more or less removed any and all tension or anticipation. and, maybe that was the point. maybe the author wanted the humor to relieve tension and keep stakes low. but it just did not work for me, and i struggled to stay interested in this.

the lack of exploration of heavier topics and the characters themselves also contributed to my disappointment with this book. the main male character, jian, pretty much loses his purpose (chosen one of a prophecy) within the first 50 pages, and rather than exploring the complex emotions that are sure to follow, we spend most of the book watching him do absolutely nothing (other than get his ass beat, which was admittedly quite entertaining at times). main characters and side characters alike experience all sorts of difficult things, and we never get any kind of exploration beyond an occasional infodump of said character's tragic backstory (that is, once again, almost always followed by a joke). the characters were flat, and for the most part were not unique or interesting personalities (at least, for me) to follow. there was one queer relationship thrown in that felt incredibly artificial, forced, and weird.

if all this wasn't irritating enough to experience, we also get frequent time skips that make absolutely no sense. one chapter, a character is in x location, pursuing x objective. the next time we get a pov from the same character, we are in a completely new and unrelated location, god knows why, and it isn't until nearly the end of the chapter that we are given any sort of context as to why the character ended up here, and for what purpose. this made the plot lose its cohesion, and i spent most of the middle part of this book asking myself "what the fuck is the point of this?" and kept drawing blanks.

the way all these separate povs were tied together was logical, and somewhat interesting, but genuinely not enough to redeem this book for me. even in the height of conflict/conflict resolution, when stakes and tension should be sky high, things kept happening very conveniently. and despite the frequent in your face messaging that "oh!!! this is dangerous!!! x character might die!!!", nothing of significance ever happened.

this might be up your alley if you're looking for a lighthearted fantasy with low stakes. my 3 stars of enjoyment comes from how often the annoying men get their asses kicked ❤️

The Trial is the bizarre story of a man attempting to navigate bureaucratic systems that refuse to be comprehensible. A sense of confusion and powerlessness is pervasive, as agents of bureaucracy present contradictory and nonsensical explanations for what is happening to him. While this is typical of Kafka’s work, it makes for an exasperating read.

I’ve read the majority of Kafka’s short stories and this was my first time reading one of his novels. To be frank, I have very little desire to return to his work again. I understand the intention of his work and why it appeals to many people. He is very good at conveying feelings of hopelessness and a sense of otherness. While I can relate to some of the feelings that he expresses, I find the experience of reading his work to be unrewarding and futile.

It took me far too long to finish this book. Part of the blame lies with me, and part of it lies with the book.

The premise is great. A chosen one faces the fact that he is not the chosen one, and maybe he still is, but no one believes it. I loved Taishi, and a grumpy old woman and great martial art master. Everything looks great on the page, but this book didn't deliver.

There are multiple POVs and I hate it when their voices are similar to each other. Other than Jian (who is a teenage boy, so it is easier to write him differently), the women's voices are too similar to each other for my taste. For example, they all have a taste for blood and violence. Like, on one page, the character thinks about choking the man in front of her, on the other page another character thinks stabbing a knife to the gut, and on another page the other character thinks kicking the kid down. They are all war artists, alright, I get that, but why do they all think like that. I didn't like that at all.

I don't like to see modern slangs in a fantasy world. I love wuxia and this is not the first book I've read inspired by ancient China. I couldn't find modern phrases like "cutie" suitable in this setting.

At first, I was surprised by how lighthearted the dialogues were. I was expecting more of high fantasy tale with high stakes and serious manners. I got used to it and started liking it. And then, I started hating this juvenile way of speaking. Especially, Qisami's chapters were insufferable. I am not mad about her character per se, who doesn't like a blood thirsty assassin, but why she talk like that... It took me out of the book.

Sali is an interesting character, and Katuia revolution might be fun to read. But I think it fall flat most of the time.