I don't want to quote post literally everyone here, but yes! All of this is so much fun to read.

Regarding the "Trust the reader" bit - I do agree to some extent; I do think that readers should be trusted to think for themselves, but at the same time, so many negative reviews I've read for this book are from people complaining about the "attack" on white Europeans that I wonder if they wouldn't get the point if they didn't have someone holding their hands. Of course, you could argue that those kind of people - it wouldn't matter if you made things simple for them or not. I think that maybe Kuang was afraid that if she didn't hold people's hands, she'd have more people not getting the point.

As Kayte points out, it's really nice to see in text, however, and not just in footnotes, characters making the points that Kuang is trying to get across. My favorite thing is what she points out in Book 1; that false sense of security that tricks even the readers into feeling one way until the casual xenophobia from some of the other characters metaphorically backhands us.

Sidenote; this quote is among my favorites because it really shows how beautiful language is: