I honestly ate this book up because the etymology-based magic system was so intriguing, and I also loved Ramy. I definitely agree that the anti colonialism stuff and her other main messages lacked subtlety though. I think authors like Kuang are really passionate about their ideologies, and in the process of using their stories as vehicles to convey them, they kinda neglect character development (ie giving each character more than three base characteristics) and pacing. I’d say it’s worth the read for the world-building alone, but it’s also an understandable skip if you’re not too into that

I honestly ate this book up because the etymology-based magic system was so intriguing, and I also loved Ramy. I definitely agree that the anti colonialism stuff and her other main messages lacked subtlety though. I think authors like Kuang are really passionate about their ideologies, and in the process of using their stories as vehicles to convey them, they kinda neglect character development (ie giving each character more than three base characteristics) and pacing. I’d say it’s worth the read for the world-building alone, but it’s also an understandable skip if you’re not too into that