I couldn't remember much of the first one, which probably should've been my first warning not to continue this series. After refreshing myself with a summary, I still found myself bored, mildly confused, and generally unattached to the characters.

It starts off super slow and still doesn't become very exciting until 50-75% of the way through. It's a lot of walking and deus ex machina whenever there's finally some kind of conflict. There was no reason to have Kang's POV, and although I liked him better than Ning because he was less whiny, he was not at all an active protagonist. Things just sort of happened to the characters, and they ran with it, and there was little character development to boot.

Ning allegedly has anger issues, but

she isn't really tempted towards the dark side other than the occasional passing violent thought, so there's absolutely no tension in wondering whether she'll fall. I get that this is supposed to be her major flaw, but

it just comes across as childish temper tantrums because there are never lasting consequences by any decision she makes when she's upset.

Like, she yells at people, even the princess, and they just pretend like nothing happened and forgive her immediately.

For this to be a flaw she overcomes, we need to actually see the poor decisions she makes when she's angry HAVE ANY SORT OF LASTING CONSEQUENCE. Meanwhile, Kang is supposed to be torn

between helping his father with the coup and trying to figure out what's the right thing to do for the empire,

but it's pretty obvious what the answer is, so there's no tension there, either. The climax felt rushed and didn't have any emotional impact because it relied so heavily on deus ex machina and the characters just being in the right place at the right time.

The plot was derivative and predictable, the setting was aesthetically pleasing (but poorly written, because I was constantly confused where the characters were within it or what their surroundings looked like), and the magic/gods honestly felt unnecessary despite being the main part of the plot. Magic that just makes the characters float around in a dream world is boring, I'm sorry, and the evil dream serpent didn't feel like much of a threat until the very end. I'm not sure how that was screwed up, but I'm serious - I think the book would've been much more interesting if this duology was just about a peasant girl who makes good tea and gets caught up in a scheme to overthrow the government and a false prince who has to decide between family loyalty and doing what's right for his people.

This is a book that makes me confident I could be an author just because it somehow got published.