Madeline > Recent Status Updates

How is this book boring.
Why is this book boring?
Ugh. Soling is naive and painfully dumb, and I am bored. And what is this book about: gunpowder or opium? Because I thought it was about gunpowder, but now we're experimenting with opium. 🤨 I am so confused.
Also, there are SO many typos and grammatical errors. It's really throwing me out of the story. Did anyone edit this?

BRO. NO WAY. ELANG? I KNOW WHO ELANG IS!

OH MY GOSH, he's Seryu's ostracized (cousin?) from "The Dragon's Promise"! The half-human, half-dragon badass with an awesome library! OH MY GOSH!!!

Wow, who knew reading the first third of crappy ol' "The Dragon's Promise" would pay off?!

But I gotta say, Tru? She's pretty much Shiori, which is disappointing. And I'm sorta over these lippy girls who fear nothing...

Well...I guess we'll see how long this lasts. I like the God of War, his intro was good; but Liyen went from a sensitive weakling to a bad A in the span of 3 pages, so I'm not sure how well this is going to go.

we're back, betches

UGH, I'm SO DISAPPOINTED so far. 😖 This isn't what I was hoping it would be. First, the writing is just...not good? Not like Girl. It's kinda...childish? And there are some weird mistakes: like the captain Sunho just met is called a man and then on the next page he's called an "older boy." 👁️👄👁️❓

This book is really weird.

UGH.

So we're into Part II and

I

am

fffrrruuussstttrrraaattteeeddd

Xinglin is ANNOYING. She's a Mary Sue who can do eVeRyThInG. And where do you get off joining the army AND DEMANDING THE GENERAL LET YOU CHOOSE YOUR OWN ASSIGNMENTS?! Uh, HUH?! That's not how the army works, honey. Guh, she's so WHINY! And as much as I like Liwei, it's not like y'all had a long-winded romance. Ugh, I'm not sure I can keep going.

OH NO

I'VE JUST MET CAPTAIN WENZHI 😳

AND I LIKE HIM 😭

OH NO

I'VE JUST MET CAPTAIN WENZHI

AND I LIKE HIM

So we're putting the sadness of A Song to Drown Rivers behind us and jumping into another East Asian fantasy novel. Because if it ain't broke? 😂 But I'm very excited about this one; it's super well-received and the first chapter was really good. I'm getting Percy Jackson vibes and I love it. 😁😎

FANLI! NO, MY SWEET BOY!

XISHI! You are officially the WORST! SPY! EVER! Fanli REALLY should have taken the time to teach you ACTUAL SEDUCTION TECHNIQUES, because you absolutely SUCK.

BUT FANLI! (*cries*) My sweet boy, how could they hurt you so?! Xishi does not deserve you! She's getting everyone she cares about killed because she's officially The Worst Spy Ever (TM)!

If Fanli doesn't live, I'm finna end someone.

WHY
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS
WHY ARE YOU DESTROYING ME
WHY ARE YOU BURNING ME ALIVE FROM THE INSIDE
I CAN'T
I CAN'T DO THIS
HELP

(*steeples fingers below chin*)

(*opens mouth to speak*)

(*closes mouth*)

Wow.

Oh wow.

So I'm in love with Fanli. That's a given.

But wow. What a beginning. That was... Wow. This seems like it's going to be really good. I hope it's going to be good. Please be good!

AND THESE BEAUTIFUL PAGES?! How did she get the publishers to print the page edges this way? They're BEAUTIFUL! <3

asa, my love, noooooooo! 💔 you better save him and reunite him with frannie, veronica!

*adds thomas paine's "common sense" to reading list*

this has been so good - I love asa, he is precious and I love him - please let him live thank you bye 🙏💕

Well...we'll see how long I stick with this one. 😒 Libby is boring me so far. I'm not sure what makes her so great, and I'm over the "strong, independent, modern-minded female who does what the boys do and does it better." Making predictions now! 1) She's def NOT going to choose 1774 and 2) Henry is most def going to be a loyalist and will sell her out at some point. 🤪

So there's a man hiding in the wardrobe with Mary, also obviously spying where he shouldn't be, and his eyes are dark and she already hates him and now this just got very interesting. 😏🥵

BUT WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO 😭

Ughhh... Should I even finish this? I'm honestly only still reading because I want another 400+ page book under my belt. But this might be too much effort and too little reward. So far, I agree with all of Lauren's review. There's just SO MUCH TELLING. Everything is so flat. I can't even remember certain things from one page to the next. This really sounds like the 1st draft of someone who JUST discovered writing.

OK, I'm sticking it out a little bit longer - things are a little more interesting now that we've reached the Guild and the apprenticeship trials. 👏⚙️🏆 Still very tell, don't show. Also, I just realized her name is Ying and the hot prince's is Ye-Yang, so...I think we all know where this is going. 😏☯️💘

Pretty excited to finally be reading this one. :-) I'm on chapter 3; it's been...slow. It reads like a debut novel; very tell, don't show. The writing style is just a bit strange, like it knows this is a book and a you're a reader. But I want to stick it out and give it a shot. :-) It's been a minute since I've read a 3rd-person limited POV so maybe I just need to get back into the groove. ;-)