Mid‑Year Reading Wrap‑Up 📚 Best & Worst of 2025 So Far

I personally ranked it as a 4.5 star, but I understand that it's going to be polarizing because people realize that RF Kuang is not going to spoon feed you a story. She demands something of you as the reader.

Now, the emotional payoff is devastating. The timing and the pacing absolutely immaculate.

I understand the concept is brilliant. It explores human identity, mortality, memory, all these huge philosophical themes, and it's dystopian without being super loud or obnoxious about it, which I usually love, but for some reason, it just fell short for me.

Is it something that I would reread? Absolutely not. But it still made me laugh.

I really enjoyed this book because the writing was so lyrical. It's either very polarizing.

It was incredible. I genuinely loved it. It's everything that I love about literary fiction all wrapped up in one.