DNF. I stopped at page 65 y’all. I didn’t really want to stop because I have the whole trilogy ready from the library but it got really boring after the first 2 chapters. I don’t really care about a sorority type group of gossip and drama. I bet if I was more patient the book would be amazing.
Here are my live thoughts while reading:
Oooh the prologue already reminds me of a theme in one of my works-in-progress, “A Crimson Oath” with the quote from Natasha Ngan:
“Words have power… the characters of our language can bless or curse a life.”
I’m already hooked to see what her fate says. I bet she turns eighteen in chapter one or two.
So there’s three castes: paper, steel and moon that have different amounts of demon in them. We meet Lei, a 17 year old from the lowest caste who misses her mother: but is she dead or captured? Why did the king’s men take her mother years ago?
The prose are beautiful and set the stage for great poetic writing. I can feel where she lives and the relationship with her father, loving but a bit absent emotionally. I’m not quite sure what Lei wants yet- maybe a way to be more powerful than stuck in the lowest class?
I hope General Yu isn’t an (enemies to lovers) romantic interest later on.
Chapter 4 bored me. Sorry y’all.
Why do people keep saying that she thinks she’s better than __. I don’t see the evidence of this assumption.
Yikes chapter 5 was slow too. I’ve hit the 50 page cut-off of wanting to keep reading or not. I’m half decided and unsure. The novel started out promising but I’m losing interest.
The descriptive writing is extremely detailed and seems more of the type of book my sister likes to sink into knowing what the room looks like and what characters are wearing.
I like the concept of her gold eyes and the intrigue of why she’s different. But being a concubine isn’t my favorite theme.
Here’s the blurb:
In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back and this time it’s Lei they’re after — the girl with the golden eyes whose rumored beauty has piqued the king’s interest. Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learns the skills and charm that befit a king’s consort. There, she does the unthinkable: she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world’s entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she’s willing to go for justice and revenge.
Cassie Swindon 