I loved Ahdieh's The Wrath & the Dawn, so I was eagerly waiting for this book. Set in feudal Japan, where myth and magic blend with court politics? A story that starts after a tangled history of ambition, betrayal, and revenge? I was sure I would love it. 
 I don't love it. I borderline dislike it. I mean, I'd probably read the sequel, but this book simply didn't grip me the way that Ahdieh's retelling of Scheherazade's story in The Wrath & the Dawn did, and the more I think about it, the more about it irritated me a LOT. Part of it was that I'd read and enjoyed two other works with strong heroines caught up in imperial politics mixed with magic - Kelley Armstrong's Age of Legends trilogy, and Alison Goodman's Eon & Eona. The latter also features a girl disguised as a boy, although if I've learned anything from growing up watching plenty of wuxia and period drama novels turned into TV series, it's that there's almost always a woman disguised as a man. 
 I think the main problem is that I had high expectations going into this precisely because I'm very used to stories like this. I grew up on the works of Jin Yong (otherwise known as Louis Cha) as pretty much any Asian kid probably also did, along with TV series like Princess Returning Pearl (affectionately abbreviated as HZGG). I mean, I realize in retrospect that it's a bit much to be expecting Ahdieh to be living up to the likes of legendary authors like Jin Yong or Qiong Yao, lol. 
 The point is, this book probably appeals a lot to those who find the setting and general storyline to be exotic and unique compared to the usual YA novels out there right now. But for someone who grew up on legends of the white haired witch, the little dragon maiden, and so on...it didn't seem all that inspired. There was nothing here that I haven't seen done better before, even recently by other YA novelists like Armstrong and Goodman. The court politics turned out to be a major, bitter disappointment. 
 Plus, at the end of the day, we get heaps of praise about how bright and clever and special Mariko is, but basically her inventions come down to a shuriken (or ninja throwing star) and an egg smoke bomb. It's a bit of a stretch to assign these inventions to her - particularly the throwing star - and it just felt forced. By the end of the book, I was SO TIRED of hearing about how clever and odd and unusually intelligent she was, especially when most of it seemed to be a benefit of her education and superior noble status, a status she enjoyed while being supremely, unbelievably blind to just about everything else: the politics of her world, her family's rule, etc. 
 Her complaints about entitlement, family duty, and the limited choices and freedoms a woman had might appeal to current young female readers, but I couldn't help but see it almost as a slap in the face of history. Mariko's life, despite all the constraints on freedom and so on, was probably in the top 1% of her time period. While I did sympathize with her desire to be something more and to be valued for more than the possibility of a political marriage, I couldn't help but grit my teeth over some of her attitudes, which I thought were appallingly selfish. The book felt at times like the story of a girl who wants to have her cake and eat it, seeing herself as the heroine of her own story, while "unimportant" characters fall as collateral damage. 
 By the end of the book, I found myself thinking that the biggest problem with the whole book was Mariko herself. It was like Adhieh wanted to transplant a 2017 feminist teenager into feudal Japan and have it make sense, while also having it end perfectly well. Her character AND the story just seemed so awfully contrived. I found myself speed reading the last 1/3 of the book, rather than savoring it as I had with both books of The Wrath & the Dawn. 
 I'm sure my opinion will be in the minority as this book seems really well marketed, but I really do think Alison Goodman and Kelley Armstrong did the same things better, although their own works are of course flawed in their own ways too. Seriously, you want a son of a disgraced warrior coming back for revenge? You want the complicated court intrigues of an imperial dynasty? You want crossdressing and a girl slowly finding her strength and rising to be the right hand woman of a crown prince? You want holy priestesses who survive attacks in the woods and return to banish evil? Just go find yourself a copy of Goodman's Eon & Eona or Armstrong's Sea of Shadows / Empire of Night / Forest of Ruin. 
 And for love of goodness, do NOT compare this to Mulan as a way of marketing the book. UGH! It just annoys me so much that the only widely known story that Western readers are familiar with about a strong Asian heroine is Mulan - the Disney version no less, half the people don't even seem to realize it's based on old Chinese legends - so any Asian heroine by default is marketed as Mulan. 
 The biggest difference? Mulan's actions were selfless. She disguised herself as a man and joined the army because her family didn't have a son to take her father's place. Mariko's actions are driven by selfishness: she doesn't like the familial duty of the arranged marriage, she wants freedom and to prove her usefulness, she convinces herself that she would bring dishonor since after the attack, it would be assumed that she's been raped (and being caught disguised as a boy in the middle of an entire clan of dishonorable men wouldn't? what kind of logic is that even.) and la di dah, basically uses the attack as an opportunity to run off. She had MULTIPLE chances to meet her brother and reveal her identity, but she didn't want to. Of course other forces are at work, but I can't help but feel that her selfishness contributed to needless deaths as, again, collateral damage.