this had no business being as long as it is, but i suppose when you have a small town as unhinged as story lake is, you inevitably end up dedicating quite a few chapters to the various shenanigans and antics its residents get up to. it's a good thing lucy score did that too, because that was pretty much the only saving grace of this entire book for me (though of course it didn't last nearly long enough to save it entirely).

many of the problems i have with this book are the same as those i'd have with the average heteronormative romance novel (anglophone ones, at least): everyone thinks way too much about sex, it feels like their brains are ruled at least in part by lust, and the man always has to prove his masculinity and devotion to the woman he loves by resorting to physical violence over her. you'll have to forgive me for not finding this caveman-like display attractive, especially when said woman is often subjected to public humiliation as a direct consequence of his actions. i believe that a man should be able to defend his lover in subtler and more elegant ways, rather than simply punching it out like someone who doesn't know how to use his words. 君子动口不动手 / a gentleman uses his words and not his fists and all that. but unfortunately, lucy score believes that campbell getting into fist-fights over another man daring to flirt with hazel is him simply "prov[ing] to [him]self and to story lake that [he] wasn't going to give up without a fight." yikes.

anyway, my main problem with the romance is that it was just boring, which shouldn't have been the case with the premise of their relationship. hazel uproots her entire life and moves to a small town in the middle of nowhere just to base her latest male lead on a random contractor she's never even spoken to once before. campbell, on the other hand, slowly manipulates hazel into agreeing to an actual romantic relationship with him, culminating in him proposing to her minutes after they get back together post-third-act conflict (yes, unfortunately there is in fact one in this book. tragic, i know), via an engagement ring taped to a wedding planning notebook. both of these, on their own, would've been incredibly uncomfortable to read about. put together, they make the perfect combination for a freak4freak story, which i love. unfortunately, they're just not insane enough to pull that off, hence my opinion that their romance was boring. i would've rather read 500 pages of the town's pet bald eagle named goose slapping unsuspecting tourists in the face with fish.

p.s. i was initially going to leave this unrated, but the smut scenes made me change my mind. if i never have to read sentences like "my legs wrapped around his waist like hungry boa constrictors" again it will be too fucking soon.

the writing is very reminiscent of a folktale, particularly one that's passed down in oral traditions, but unfortunately that's pretty much all i liked of this book.

nghi vo falls into the same trap of other chinese-inspired fantasy authors in serving up an incomprehensible buffet of transliteration systems (both wades-giles and pinyin) and multiple distinct asian languages, including both chinese and vietnamese. that's how we get names like zhang phuong, xao min, and wa-xui, all three of which combine syllables/sounds from both mandarin and vietnamese. i genuinely do not understand the intention behind this. how does it help you to mix and match languages like this when most of your readers won't realise what you're doing, and when this is going to offend many readers who do, like myself? it really does read as though it doesn't matter what language the name (or its component characters) is taken from, as long as it sounds vaguely asian to the reader, and this impression is not helped along by names such as "in-yo" and "ma chiroh" (it sounds like iroh from atla, which would be one reason why i never watched atla), or the incorporation of the kirin (korean/japanese) when it should have been the qilin.

i'm also not entirely sure where or how the so-called imperial china inspiration comes into play. there are a few moments here and there, such as the reference to 鲤跃龙门 / the carp leaping over the dragon gate, but overall it just seems like your standard fantasy setting, just one where the emperor has multiple wives and the names sound asian. i have many gripes with the usage of the term "wives" and not "concubines" too—it is, in fact, critical to the harem system in ancient china that there be a distinct division between the roles of wife and concubine. trying to ignore that does not inspire much faith in the inspiration the author claims to have taken from imperial china, and neither does the passing reference to a character "dye[ing] her hair a bright peppery red," as if that wouldn't be a major taboo. i am exceedingly tired of authors using "ancient china" as nothing more than an aesthetic and a label to attract readers; you cannot have the aesthetic without the culture, so this is utterly meaningless. i don't think i'm asking for much either. it's enough to just show me that you understand at least some of its nuances, but unfortunately that's not what happened here.

i find myself also generally unimpressed with the worldbuilding and the structure of the plot, though a large part of that may be attributed to the short length of this novella. naming a constellation "the baker" is simply ludicrous, and the vague likening of in-yo's home nation to russia through their sealing and the name "ingarsk-ino," which is as vaguely russian as ma chiroh is vaguely chinese, just brings up even more questions about the feasibility of her political marriage. why in the name of all the gods is russia sending a political bride all the way to china? they're much too far for that alliance to make sense. as for the plot, i must confess that i am not a fan of authors using their main or pov characters as a mere vessel for the story that a third party tells to them. i find it to be a cheap tactic, and i think, given how nghi vo writes rabbit's stories to mimick the style of oral storytelling, this novella would've worked just as well had she simply written it in that manner. either that, or extend the length of her narrative so she can better develop the theme of storytelling and record-keeping, which was unfortunately lacking in this novella.