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Such a strange book. I needed to take a minute after each story to let it properly sink in. I liked some better than others, which is inevitable, but really like the feeling of the book overall. And the folklore and cultural references were very new to me so I appreciated them a lot!

This is already incredible. Each story requires me to take a few seconds and stare at a wall to fully process it!

I can't really describe it another way? The book follows Maia as he gets into his role as emperor. Maia is very smart but not really aware of the social and political dynamics in court, let alone the whole empire. But we follow him through it all, and it's all told in such a calm, peaceful tone - despite some very not calm, not peaceful things happening! Loved it.

This is it!!! I'm reading the theory!!!!!

My expectations for this book were set by the foreword, which praises it for being a sort of return to form for Japanese mystery novels where the crime is a puzzle that the reader is given every possible piece to solve. So I got more and more disappointed as I read and realised this was not the case: from hidden relationships and the motivation for the violent acts of seemingly regular characters being that they are "psychopaths", to handwavy explanations and inane planning ahead, a solvable mystery it was not. If I had picked it up expecting a thriller I would have enjoyed it much more, but as a mystery novel it left me rolling my eyes, shrugging and thinking of animes like Subete ga F ni Naru. If that's your thing, this is absolutely for you!

I am getting strong anime-mystery vibes from this book. You know, it's a "solvable mystery" if you're able to imagine some braingenius preparing their actions somehow perfectly, decades in advance, to execute an elaborate revenge plot. Hoping it won't be as disappointing as those tend to be!

Very good, not as much fun as the first but still way more fun than the average book for me. After the 60% mark I simply could not put it down! Looking forward to the end of the series.