Status Updates From Bronze Drum

i gotta say the way this is written has me a lil confused; the povs are constantly jumping around in between paragraphs, switching from first to third person, etc. the scenes are also just constantly jumping - the han governor has just announced that he’s gonna increase taxes by 12% and then the next scene is trac describing the tutors body scientifically… first time i’ve seen someone just say penis. she dgaf

it’s hard for me to lock into due to the fact i had no previous knowledge of vietnamese culture and history, and it sometimes feels slow. BUT. youre able to connect and understand the main characters. always will love a complicated sister dynamic

This is so frustrating. I want to know the story but the writing is SO bad.

I don’t understand how a story like this can be completely devoid of emotion

Anachronistic feminism is so cringe…written by a man bc of course 21st-century readers can’t root for real historical women unless they’re rewritten to know all abt the patriarchy and colonialism in the 1st century

how is a book about revolution so dry

The story is good but the writing is so dull…

the prose of this book feels like reading a wikipedia article and i’m not a fan

I keep reading hoping it’ll get better but it keeps disappointing me.. but I might as well finish it 🤷🏻‍♀️

So far a whole lot of nothing happened…

getting more heated :’)

getting spicy

sudden puppy play wtf

Wait! Tô Định was also Chinese. Why is his name in Vietnamese but not Ma Yuan's? (according to the Viet wiki Tô Định's Chinese name is 蘇定/Sū Dìng)

"Trưng Trắc could often be found indoors, studying the histories of the Việts and the Hán,"

Việt is already plural like Hán, no?

hey a book based on history I actually know about! I've only read the intro and prologue so far. yay for keeping the diacritics on the Viet names, but why doesn't Ma Yuan's name have diacritics? Hán is used for Han Chinese, but Hán is the Viet translation of it (in pinyin w/ diacritics it would be Hàn), so why is Ma Yuan's name the only one that's totally anglicized? his name in Viet is Mã Viện by the way

Wow. Chapter 28 just ripped my soul apart. Literally weeping uncontrollably.

Seemed like complex plot so returned it for now

Checked out from Libby but did not start cuz it looked hard to follow Come back and try again.

I am trying to trek through this read but it is a tough one...I am not sure if it is the snapshots of plot that are difficult to connect at times or the writing style, but this is certainly not an easy read. I am trying to persist but other books on the shelf are calling my name!

Imagine getting released from your prison only because your parents what you to go off and find your missing sister.... Also the bow used in this story is the same style of bow used in the Odyssey

"In order to let go of her rage, she needed to let go of everything..." This was so powerful. Definitely one of my favorite quotes so far

The sisters hold so much anger towards.... Curious how they end up fighting together

After Nhi falling for someone she wasn't supposed now goes Trac doing the same thing she judge her sister for doing.

I was promised war and action and all I am getting is sappy sister competition, love, and then complaining about being lonely

Honestly was expecting the sisters to be alone without their estate by now. Most historical war legend books have the reader get immediately dropped into the action yet we are almost 100 pages in and it's just been the characters going back and forth. So much tension between the sisters, I don't understand how they don't hate one another.. also I dislike the parents

Why would you let your family's employee pretend to act like a dog and lick your hand??? That's bizarre

I really don't like the sisters' mother

I wasn't entirely thrilled about starting this book. Not because it didn't sound great, but because I had just finished the TOG series. However, I have to say that so far I am VERY pleased. The writing is higher level and the style is very beautiful. It is still early but I am enjoying it so far.

“This despair was unrecognizable—nothing like the disappointment of losing a spar, or the frustration of being imprisoned for months—a new depth that stunned her into incomprehensible and silent muttering.”

“Sometimes evil goes unpunished by man or woman or god”