The Burning God

I read the first book in this trilogy for the hype and was disappointed by the uneven tone, pacing and the copy/paste feel of its historical inspirations. I liked the first half well enough to pick up the second book and was pleasantly surprised to find a more confident tone, better pacing and a story that started to really pull me in despite really disliking the MC. This book felt like the author lost interest in their own story halfway through. It dragged and felt rushed at the same time... so many themes and characters went unexplored, there was a ton of build up that led towards several deeply unsatisfying conclusions. For all its historical references and allegories it didn't seem to have much to say about any of it. The ending should have been devastating, but I felt so little for these characters I was just glad to be done. Rin's POV is exhausting in this book, and despite being basically a god she feels like both a spectator and a victim which made reading her feel like a chore.

If you've studied or read any of the history that these books are based on I honestly wouldn't bother reading them. Anything original, is ultimately insignificant to the larger plot. If you're unfamiliar with the history, I think these books could be engaging reads, big political twists, betrayals, heartbreaking atrocities... it's interesting because the history is interesting.

My biggest problem with this series as a whole, is that it's essentially just adding magic to history, but the magic adds nothing, changes nothing... We just swap technology for magic and away we go. There are a couple of notable exceptions to this but overall, the plot just follows Chinese history through the 20th century then ends. There was a point in this book where it felt like it was about to diverge... then it just didn't.

I know lots of people love this series, I wish I could. The second book almost got me there but with this as a conclusion I wouldn't recommend it either.