Too much anime. Not in the sense of eastern influence as much as the tropes. Protagonist will simply try harder to overcome all obstacles. Everything is a personal slight against her, each challenge is the most worstest thing possible so that when she overcomes it she's the baddest asstest of them all. It's annoying from the outset, but there's a lot of book left for her to be humbled/for this to pan out as a setup device. Judging by the writing style though, it doesn't seem intentionally ironic at all... 5.75/10 so far

the idea tha one can just read books to become a martial artist reeks of someone who's never thrown nor received a punch in an earnest fight

googled img of author and this is for sure

Done with Part I and yeah – seems like nothing is impossible because protag can just learn it quite literally overnight. Or flash forward a year or two for wasted dramatic effect. Moments of agony, effort, victory are not savored at all in this book; so far it's one lengthy montage with anime dialogue...

On par with Darker Shade of Magic which I think I gave a flat 5.

though the mechanics of Psychedelic warfare seem cool, I cannot suspend my disbelief for the combat nor the drug use. keep saying that's not how any of this works after someone gets hit or swallows a poppy seed like it's a chug jug

Unwillingness of adults to swear like soldiers e.g. usage of "butt" rather than "ass" followed by a bunch of kids swearing like pirates reads like a child wrote it... which is kinda the experience of the whole book so far: seemingly written for kids, about kids, doing adult stuff, with the occasional jarring piece of action that is more graphic/violent/sexual than what I'd expect for the YAF this feels like, makes for a jarring experience.

Concur with Charlie that while Kuang definitely knows her stuff about the historical aspect, I feel like she's lacking research/expertise on the two other crucial axes of this story: combat and drugs

The shapeshifter monster scene sucks so bad. It's exposited, encountered without any suspense (so it's foreshadowed shapeshifting abilities aren't used for any kind of suspense), there's 0 mystery in realizing that it's the shapeshifter and then it shapeshifts into the most telegraphed thing. It's just such a weak use of a possibly cool (though also unoriginal) beast. Ugh

-1 overall for this shit alone

I don't mind, but there's also some pretty harsh anti-Japanese err, I mean "anti-federation" sentiment/racism in here.

For other books (Tapestry series, Carrion Comfort, the good bits of SLA) the best parts of those books are the righteous destruction of the baddies. In order for this formula to work though, the baddies have to be bad, the vengeance has to be motivated, and the annihilation has to be cool. This book goes out of its way to do a vengeance porn like this and it's not good, rather disgusting. Litany of warcrimes that are glossed over, named for shock value, and then have little impact on the characters or the plot other than "and that's why I'm going to do a genocide," despite the protag not being personally effected at all, and being predisposed to slaughter in the first place. Also the baddies are just Japanese people lmao, so it's questionable (DESPITE THE WAR CRIMES LISTED BEING THE HISTORICAL PART OF THE BOOK) it's just handled so badly because this is a poorly written book. Archetypes glued together around atrocities that aren't paid due respect. Ex machina god mode characters written by an author that feels like she has no idea what the feelings she's describing feel like?¿.

Won't finish the series, this book was cringe.

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