I found the book to be so refreshing! I love historical fiction, but honestly? So many historical fiction pieces that get popularized enough to make it onto everyone's 'to be read' list are written by white people. It was so refreshing to see a period piece that called out the colonialism, trauma, and abuse that most period pieces gloss over or even glamorize because they weren't written by the people who's culture and history got destroyed in the first place. I know a lot of people think R. F. Kuang is preachy, but maybe it's just because they would rather ignore these important discussions rather than talk about it. We often hear the quote when engaging in love for historical based things, whether it be fashion, books, history - "Vintage aesthetic, not vintage values" but in order to fully understand that, we need to discuss what those values are and I'm so happy Kuang did and her book is popular enough it's discussed more.

I love how she clearly did her research and even when there were some parts where you could say she strayed a bit from reality, you still felt you could recognize parts and it wasn't nearly as improbable as it could have been if she hadn't done her research. I really loved the footnotes because it helped explain where Kuang's head was at and I felt there was quite a bit that I did learn. I don't think it took away from the story, in fact, I think it added to it, as it made me feel a bit like I was also one of the students in the book. I thought it was a powerful book and though the themes were perhaps more important than the characters, I found myself very attached to each one and it's probably one of the best books I've read all year.