The Empress of Salt and Fortune

I liked this a fair bit - it sort of pulled me along well although i found myself a little confused at times. Na lent this to me, she found it quite sad and emotional which was surprising. I agree that the things that happened to In-Yo and Rabbit were tragic however i feel the story is told quite matter of factly, its quite unemotional in its presentation or perhaps as its far removed, i didnt feel particularly moved at any point.

I did really enjoy it tho and i felt like it accomplished what it set out to achieve - the story moved along at a good pace and for such a short read i felt the characters were well enough developed. I really enjoyed the structure of the narrative and feeling like we are looking in at the story rather than in the midsts of it. This illustrated the relationship between In-Yo and Rabbit and the act of recoding these second hand reflections beautifully. When Almost Brilliant told Rabbit ‘I understand. I will remember Sukai for you, and so will my children and their children.' i felt this captured a beautiful sentiment of love, loss and the sacricity (?) of memory. I would have liked the idea explored more if this were a series or longer book of the stories Chih and Almost Brilliant collected however i think it was nicely achieved given the length. Particualrly Almost Brilliants comforting of Rabbit, she understands (often unlike Chih), Rabbit doesnt have to ask.

Its hard to formulate my feelings nicely into a review but tldr - 3.7 <3