The word that best comes to mind when I try to sum up this book is "exquisite". I typically don't enjoy historical fiction but the great reviews convinced me to give this one a chance, and I'm glad I did.

The story is fantastic, the characters well fleshed out and intriguing, the world building well done.

The only nits I have with this book are:
* The author is *incredibly* wordy, taking pages and pages to describe seemingly simple things. There were periods during the book where I skimmed and flipped pages quickly.
* There's an incredible amount of violence, and due to the author's wordiness, it gets described in excruciating detail... I got to the point where I was just tired with the descriptions of the injuries and how they were inflicted and wanted to move on.

Well written, good world building, thought provoking overall. I wish I could rate it 3.5 stars.

Incredibly challenging puzzles, but interesting reading

As always it wrapped up tidily and happily, which is something I love about this series and the writing. The characters continue to be a joy, all unique on their own yet they come together in lovely ways, and the plot was complex enough to keep me guessing. 4 stars instead of 5 just because of some of the parts in the middle that I didn’t enjoy as they were very tense so I somewhat skimmed them.

I bought this book on a whim and am not finished with it yet, but I can safely say it’s one of these types of books (almanac style, lots of little trivia) that is *totally* worth buying (and in physical form too - it’s fun to pick up when you only have a few minutes).

You don’t need to read every word to really enjoy it (I skimmed over some parts) but there’s something worth reading on every single page, and it quickly moves from topic to topic.

Calm and chill, audiobook narrator is lovely

Absolutely fantastic as an audiobook, as many of the people from the movie were part of the recording. I found myself grinning like mad while listening.

Took me a very long time to get into, which was frustrating... but by halfway through I loved it, and read the second half in one sitting. At the end of the book, I was smiling - always nice when a book leaves you like that. I debated giving it a 5 star rating but it was so obtuse in the beginning that I didn’t.

Now I’m going to reread it again so I can see the details come together through an updated perspective :-)

So many funny quotable bits from the dialog, really loved it, but the ending wasn’t as interesting or clever as I wish it had been.

Audiobook narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, which is fun.

I liked many parts of this but overall it felt too much like a parable and not a book, it’s like a hero’s quest that is constantly shouting “this is a hero’s quest”

3.5 stars for me. I liked many of the chapters very much, but it took me 18 months to finish reading because I kept losing interest in the middle.

I liked the first 2/3rds of it, but then it just went crazy and I got tired of it

…wow. I very much enjoyed this. So much heart.

Recently reread 30 years after I first read it. Enjoyed a lot of it, it’s short stories stitched together and the stitching works surprisingly well in many cases but not in all.

My least favorite of the three. Plot felt like too high stakes for the entire time, with no rest, and so many things going on that it was hard to keep track of. Still an enjoyable trilogy in general though.

Really did not like it. Some promising bits overall (setting, overall story arc, some of the characters) but soooo didn’t work for me. Pacing was super off, characters got way too friendly way too quickly, then there would be a weird turning point where one of them would say something completely unlike them, etc

A bit gruesome in parts, but I liked it. Some interesting characters, good convoluted plot.

A bit tough to get into if you’re not very familiar with Chinese history or culture. I found some aspects of the storytelling to be mildly annoying, but as I got further into it I realized that part of what I was feeling was probably because of the lack of cultural context I had - and indeed when I read the afterword from the author and the translator (which were both wonderful) it later became clear that was the case. The last 25% held my attention and I couldn’t put it down. Very very interesting read, one that will probably stick with me for a long time.

3.5 stars rounded up. A new-to-me author, this was my book club’s pick this month. I enjoyed it overall, of course as a cozy romantasy you know what you’re in for but in that context the characters were interesting and the plot hits on some really powerful points (TW: trauma/abuse: one of the main characters is a child abuse survivor) and weaves it in. There were just a couple of points where I was like “uhhh that was overly simplistic” with how some pieces tied together but it was cute enough that I forgave it.

Eh… it was ok. I loved the author’s Superpowereds series with a passion, but found this underwhelming.

Good… but brutal. TW rape and child abuse.

A story about trauma, and survival, and trauma survival

Well, I should have looked at how short it was before spending an entire audible credit on it, but it was a decent short story.

The audiobook is phenomenal, Mel narrates his book, such a joy to listen to.

some fun ingredients, but the recipe didn't hold together well for me

Recently re-read. It’s a quick, light, popcorn read. I remember not liking the codas that much the first time I read it but this time they hit differently and I liked how they fleshed out different parts of the story.

An engaging romp through science history. Excellent audiobook, the narrator was great.

Wow. Just… wow.

Fun to reread it just 18mo after my first read, since book #3 came out and made me remember how much I loved the characters and the writing style.