warning: this review contains minor spoilers and a shit ton of swearing. 
 I cannot remember the last time I was so relieved for a book to be over. One of the most tragic feelings is witnessing your hopes and dreams for one of your most-anticipated releases of the year crash and burn before your eyes, and I'm honestly pissed at myself now for getting so hyped about this. 
 This book had awful pacing, a plot that I didn't give a shit about, and characters that BORED ME TO DEATH. 
 Let's just get right into the trashing and talk about Mariko, shall we? 
 Mariko. Fucking Mariko. I genuinely hate her more than I hate Agniezka from Uprooted and Celaena from Throne of Glass COMBINED, and that is saying something because BOY do I hate those characters. 
 This book is supposed to be a Mulan retelling. Now, I fucking LOVE Mulan. I have absolutely no idea what she did to deserve being compared to the dumb-ass piece of shit that is Mariko. 
 The book begins with Mariko traveling through the woods on her way to marry the emperoraEUR(tm)s son and continue her already super pampered and privileged life in an even more pampered and privileged position in the imperial palace. Unfortunately, her entourage is attacked by a mysterious group of outlaws. Everyone accompanying her dies, but apparently Mariko just couldnaEUR(tm)t fucking sit tight in her little box and let herself get burned to death, so she escapes and the entire chain of ridiculous events that is this book begins. 
 Our heroine proceeds to wander around a forest for 20 pages and make grand proclamations about her supposed intelligence and bravery and big revenge plans. She spent so much time talking about how she was gonna go on this grand quest to find out who killed her make them pay, and I was sitting here like ??? GIRL, you are still lost and helpless in the middle of a forest how the fuck do you plan on accomplishing all of that ??? Mariko has no training with weapons or fighting or tracking or ANYTHING USEFUL, sheaEUR(tm)s about as threatening as a ladybug. 
 Ahdieh spends an insane amount of the book talking about how smart and resourceful and capable Mariko is, but all we actually see Mariko doing is being prissy and incompetent. How did a girl from a noble family manage to survive on her own in the woods and tiny villages with no money?? How did she find her way out of an immense forest on her own??? How did she know enough about chemistry and weapons to build explosives and come up with designs for new kinds of blades???? DonaEUR(tm)t ask me guys, I donaEUR(tm)t fucking know. WeaEUR(tm)re told sheaEUR(tm)s oh-so-smart and perceptive and has all these skills but we never see her use them. 
 Mariko is basically irrelevant to the plot of her own book. She doesn't actually DO anything important. She sits around and watches other people do stuff and has this ridiculous, naive, idiotic belief that she is somehow smart and brave and capable of taking on people who are far smarter and better-trained than she is. Also, the plot is a senseless chain of events that never really seem to go anywhere so IaEUR(tm)m not even gonna get into that. 
 The other characters wereaEUR|okay, I guess. Kenshin was much more capable and less annoying than Mariko, but his storyline kind of fell flat because it was only about his quest to find Mariko. There was all this talk about him being loyal to her, and their whole family being fairly close, but I didnaEUR(tm)t actually see any of that. Kenshin doesnaEUR(tm)t really have much personality or development, and their parents are more like background props than real people. anyway, if Mariko was MY sister and she went missing I wouldn't look too hard for her 
 Okami could have been cool. I thought he was alright when he was first introduced, but then he had to go and fall for dumb-bitch Mariko and I literally lost all respect for him. It was some of the cringiest insta-love I've read in a while. The scene when he discovers Mariko's gender was beyond ridiculous, he was basically just like "omg you have boobs!! you lied to us all but it's fine, letaEUR(tm)s fuck now." Also, the whole thing about how he was kinda denying he was attracted to her before he knew he was a girl felt vaguely homophobic ?? He couldn't admit to himself that he thought he might be attracted to a man, but once he realized she was a woman he was like oh yes of course now it's okaEUR|aEUR| I feel like the way that whole buildup and reveal was handled was weird and I skimmed the romance parts bc they were cringy af. I hope this ship gets caught in a violent storm and shatters into a million pieces. 
 This book would genuinely have been so much better if Mariko wasn't the main character. Like, if this was from Kenshin's POV it could have been a cool samurai version of Taken featuring Amaya, the badass blacksmithaEUR(tm)s daughter who makes swords and defies her superiors to rescue men from burning buildings. OR, if it centered on the emperor and his sons and wives there could have been some really interesting political intrigue and family dynamics. Hell, I would rather read the life story of Yoshi the one-legged cook than another fucking chapter about Mariko. 
 Ranmaru, Yumi, Ren, other minor characters whose names IaEUR(tm)m forgettingaEUR|I didnaEUR(tm)t really give a shit about them so I honestly donaEUR(tm)t think theyaEUR(tm)re worth mentioning. 
 AlsoaEUR|aEUR|what even WAS the magic in this world?? Like, Okami had some kind of power that let him float/fly? And Kanako did those things with flowers and trees and hidden gardens?? And then it seemed like Kenshin did something fire-y and death-y????? And Ranmaru???????? Sooooo many people supposedly had these random magical abilities that were never clearly described or addressed and it was so confusing and poorly developed. There were a bunch of times when characters were mentioned as "being" water, fire, earth, etc. and I donaEUR(tm)t know if that was supposed to be related to this and maybe mean they had some kind of elemental magic? I just donaEUR(tm)t fucking know, guys, this was such a mess. 
 The only part of this book that genuinely interested me was learning about the Japanese setting and culture. It was clearly very well-researched and well-done, I just wish there had been a decent story and characters to go along with it. I felt the same way about the writing itself. Ahdieh's prose is stunning, and it's one of the reasons I adored The Wrath and the Dawn series. She crafts beautiful, lush, and vivid sentences, but unfortunately that was not enough to save this story. 
 As I mentioned in an update, I would not recommend this if it was the last book on earth.