A palace servant trained in herbal medicine finds herself at the heart of imperial intrigue in this enthralling period mystery!
Maomao leads an unassuming life with her apothecary father, but kidnappers whisk her away to a world of consorts and serving women in the empire’s rear palace. Sold into imperial servitude, the girl keeps her quick wit, sharp mind, and medical knowledge a secret. But the head eunuch, Jinshi, shatters Maomao’s low profile when she catches his eye. He perceives her true skills and makes her a lady-in-waiting to the rear palace’s top consort. Can Maomao quietly pass her term as her lady’s food tester, or will observational prowess and curiosity push her into danger as she uncovers turmoil at court?
Teniendo el manga y el anime empezados no podía no leer la novela de Los diarios de la boticaria. Me ha encantado de principio a fin y da gusto ver como está tan bien adaptada. Supongo que por ser una novela ligera los casos se desarrollan poquito, pero en caso de que eso molestara demasiado, siempre está el manga que le pone algo más de atención y podemos ver mejor la reacción de los personajes a lo que ocurre o sus propias interacciones.
Review of 'The Apothecary Diaries 1' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
I loved the anime, so I had to get into the books! It's really fascinating to see how the original story has more of a classic mystery novel feel, kind of brushing past the setup of the rear palace and Maomao's place in it to get into Jinishi asking for her help to solve these seemingly unconnected problems. The slow buildup into showing how everything is connected is a strength of the volume, but it also puts it in contrast to the anime adaptation. The show does an excellent job in presenting the source material, don't get me wrong, but it also benefits from the hindsight of knowing what actually ends up as important to the story. As a result, there's a lot more detail and foreshadowing put into some areas that just does not exist in this book. While I love how everything came together, most of the volume …
I loved the anime, so I had to get into the books! It's really fascinating to see how the original story has more of a classic mystery novel feel, kind of brushing past the setup of the rear palace and Maomao's place in it to get into Jinishi asking for her help to solve these seemingly unconnected problems. The slow buildup into showing how everything is connected is a strength of the volume, but it also puts it in contrast to the anime adaptation. The show does an excellent job in presenting the source material, don't get me wrong, but it also benefits from the hindsight of knowing what actually ends up as important to the story. As a result, there's a lot more detail and foreshadowing put into some areas that just does not exist in this book. While I love how everything came together, most of the volume felt like the author was also trying to figure out what kind of story this was. Some scenes had a lot of passive language, and the descriptions are sparse, causing the illustrations to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of imagining how the characters look. To be fair, I'm not sure how much of that might have been impacted by the translation, but if I didn't have the context of the anime to help me out, there are times when I would've been lost on what was happening or the significance of certain scenes. Overall though, it's still an incredible opening to the series, and I'm excited to get to the point where the anime left off to find out what happens next!
I wasn't sure whether this would be super interesting, but I was pretty much hooked from the start and the only reason it took more than a couple days for me to read was a bunch of library books coming off hold.
Maomao is a fun protagonist, using investigative abilities on par with Sherlock to figure out the mysteries of the rear palace and her skills as a pharmacist to help resolve them. Plenty of interesting mysteries in here, all layered together so that nothing feels unnecessary by the end of the book. The romance is pretty minimal, which I would consider a bonus since it was the weakest part.
Very solid book, and I'll be happy to grab more of them as they come out.
I wasn't sure whether this would be super interesting, but I was pretty much hooked from the start and the only reason it took more than a couple days for me to read was a bunch of library books coming off hold.
Maomao is a fun protagonist, using investigative abilities on par with Sherlock to figure out the mysteries of the rear palace and her skills as a pharmacist to help resolve them. Plenty of interesting mysteries in here, all layered together so that nothing feels unnecessary by the end of the book. The romance is pretty minimal, which I would consider a bonus since it was the weakest part.
Very solid book, and I'll be happy to grab more of them as they come out.
