The Apothecary Diaries, Volume 1

Picked this up because I really liked the manga, and I immensely enjoyed the novel form as well. It highlights all the little details that are easy to overlook in the manga. Not sure if the manga will take a different approach eventually, but as far as the first volume goes, it's a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel.

Maomao is an apothecary training under her adoptive father, living in the capital's red-light district until she was kidnapped and sold into the rear palace as a serving woman. At first she's rather detached to her surroundings and mostly keeps to herself, but everything starts to change after she solves the issue of infant deaths in the rear palace. From there, she works on a series of cases that may seem unrelated to each other at first, but all lead to the same major issue in the end.

What I like the most in the novel is that we don't only see things from Maomao's perspective, but also from Jinshi's side. Maomao's behavior and thought process are also explained better, so she feels more like a human with her own concerns. The first volume of the novel covers Maomao's arrival at the rear palace, up to the resolution of Ah-Duo's arc. Maomao has been reluctant to get promoted because it means putting more money in her kidnapper's pockets, but that issue is also taken care of by the end of the book.

The translation can come off as rather pretentious at times, especially with the usage of fancy words that are uncommonly used, but it actually works for this book. Not only because of the settings, but also because the original is also like that. The flow is good too, so no complaints in that aspect.