I was happy with the verbose prose. I rather enjoyed the descriptions and world-building actually. And ahhh an oriental setting mixed with fantasy mixed with steampunk = YES!! 
 The highlight in this novel was, without a doubt, Buruu and Yukiko's relationship and their funny conversations together. Yukiko's strained relationship with her father was well-done and made my heart ache a little heh. 
 The plot was interesting until (view spoiler)[Yukiko goes to court... and then it became boring. There was no political intrigue... just Yukiko swooning over Green Eyes... (hide spoiler)] and I don't even want to think about the romance in this novel... it was awful. Ok, I'll think a bit about it. Firstly - instalust (CRINGE) for random soldier just because of his eyes (ok admittedly green eyes are nice but) there is ZERO CHEMISTRY BETWEEN Green Eyes and Yukiko. A bad romance is just completely off-putting to me. Now, if Green Eyes wasn't a love interest, and it was ONLY (view spoiler)[Kin, then that I could bear with. A slow build-up from friendship in the sky ship, to betrayal at finding out his identity, then eventually slow buds of romance *sighs happily* (hide spoiler)] Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. And unfortunately, I'm not in the mood to tolerate even a hint of a love triangle right now. 
 The villain. Yoritomo. Kristoff did a good job at making me feel absolute disgust for him. But... I find it really difficult to believe a 13 year old madman/boy could stay on the throne for so many years without his unhappy courtiers or even the guild already disposing of him. A dislikeable villain, but also a boring depthless villain...