Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai

this book sucked ass lmfao. also it was weirdly preachy and self-aggrandizing about the fact that it didn't translate any of its non-english dialogue but the non-english dialogue was also terrible and also she did nothing at all with it. the french (i speak french hi) was like illegibly bad like i literally wish she'd translated it just so i can know for sure what she was trying to say lmfao

This was overall an enjoyable read with characters that I enjoyed getting to know and ended up caring about. The setting struck me as fairly typical urban fantasy à la Dresden Files or Valkyrie Collections, which, to be transparent, is not my favorite. In this world, magic folk exist in parallel to the mundane world, and there is some sort of sprawling magical law enforcement agency. Although the urban fantasy setting and tropes were well-executed, they didn't particularly grab me. The main POV character is Chinese, and so there was much more of an exploration of East Asian magic, mythology, and folklore than in many urban fantasies. I found those aspects really engrossing and wished there had been even more. The dialogue and banter were a lot of fun--snappy without being over the top. I found the plot propulsive and overall this was a read I consistently looked forward to. The romance element was more primary than I realized going in--this is really 50/50 fantasy-romance. Honestly, the romance didn't viscerally grab me, but it was definitely well-drawn and spicy. If there is a direct sequel, I probably won't pick it up, but I would definitely like to read more from this author.

I'm biased, this is a friend's book, but I'd have rated it highly regardless. Does a good job of communicating the world in medias res — I discovered tonight that I have been incorrectly writing “media” for years — and I quite like the world and would love to read more books in it. Although the conclusion may preclude ones with the same groups and characters. Be warned there are some pretty graphic sex scenes, definitely not one for younger readers.