Both the cover and the premise made me want to read this book. The first person point of view immediately connected me to Fan Zilan and I loved her intelligence, sarcastic wit, and loyalty to family.
The world building is lush and felt three dimensional and Zilan's talent as an alchemist was completely believable for me. I enjoyed her desire to achieve greatness and rise above the poverty status in which her family lived.
I rooted for Zilan as she and her siblings traveled to the capitol to take their exams and the danger along the way kept me riveted to the pages. Then the Alchemist tests, though very dark, also raised deeper social issues that I felt apply to current society.
The relationship between the Prince and Zilan was fun and I enjoyed their banter up until the what felt like insta-love romance started. Before this part of the novel, I was thinking this was going to be a top read for me of the year.
The ending felt lacking to me and didn't build up enough suspense. The events seemed almost too easy and didn't make me want to care enough about the characters to continue on their journey in the sequel.
The world building is lush and felt three dimensional and Zilan's talent as an alchemist was completely believable for me. I enjoyed her desire to achieve greatness and rise above the poverty status in which her family lived.
I rooted for Zilan as she and her siblings traveled to the capitol to take their exams and the danger along the way kept me riveted to the pages. Then the Alchemist tests, though very dark, also raised deeper social issues that I felt apply to current society.
The relationship between the Prince and Zilan was fun and I enjoyed their banter up until the what felt like insta-love romance started. Before this part of the novel, I was thinking this was going to be a top read for me of the year.
The ending felt lacking to me and didn't build up enough suspense. The events seemed almost too easy and didn't make me want to care enough about the characters to continue on their journey in the sequel.