jujubee cameo?? 

i loved the tie ins to ancient chinese legends, folklore, and history and found the plot to be engaging. like the concept for this book is crazy good and it nails it in those final chapters.

i felt that the author was so excited to fill the chapters with symbolism and motifs that the overtness could be off-putting to some (the blue butterfly scene especially really felt like a "look here!! look at me this is symbolism!!"), but i loved that this book felt like a passion project. with such an innovative and deeply personal concept as well, this book just feels like someone's precious creation rather than a copy-paste romantasy manufactured for mass consumption. that alone makes me want to give it a higher rating. i want to praise books like this so bad because we need more of them, especially those created by and featuring marginalized people who so rarely get such fond representation. like, lgbt characters of color that are written true to form and not as either perfect model minorities or fridged immediately?? in 2024?? lol.


as for the flaws, the writing itself was eyebrow-raising in both diction and general put-togetherness, the dialogue stilted, and i felt that most of the characters and their relationships were not very fleshed out. the main pairing conceptually requires insta-love, i get it, but i didn't believe the love. the truth of it all. and the other relationships were somehow even less believable, with calvin and river getting the biggest red mark for this.  and my final "gripe" was that the lore-infodump ending would absolutely not have worked for a standalone. BUT! i swear i saw the author say there will be another book in a tiktok's comment section. i swear i did.

3 stars!!! tentatively!!!