I’m of two minds when it comes to this book. I do think that the writing improved from the first one to this one, which I appreciated. I’m also glad that it addressed how rushed it was for Zetian to topple government at the end of the previous book. I think it was good to show that Zetian had a great deal of growing and learning to do in this book. It was disappointing to see that some of that “progress” on her part was actually justifying morally questionable actions, but I’m going to hope that she will start to see the error of those decisions in the third book. 

I think the hardest thing about this book is that it is almost completely unrelated to the first one. So any of the things that you might have liked in the first book are pretty much absent, aside from the push for feminism. I was so excited in the last one to have some representation for polyamory, but that is completely gone here, because of what happened to Shimin at the end of Iron Widow. If Shimin happened to be your favorite character, well, he is all but absent in this book. Did you like Yizhi’s character in the last one? Well, get ready for his entire character to be destroyed. The only hints at romance that we get are between Zetian and Qin Zheng, and their relationship is toxic as hell. I guess there’s some potential for the better relationships to be recovered in the third book, but I’m not going to hold my breath on that.

I also felt like the first book had more in interspersed action, where is this one is so focused on the politics and the revolution that it drags for about the first 75% of the book. It was somewhat interesting to see how a revolution like this would happen, but it felt like too much. There are a few battles that happen earlier on, but there isn’t much excitement to them. It is only in the final confrontation that any significant tension due to action in the book happens.

I am still curious about where things might go, so I will give the next book a chance, especially because I do appreciate Xiran Jay Zhao as a person, as well as the messaging in the acknowledgments.