I usually never write a review unless I have finished the story or am almost done, however, I'm writing one this time because I can't make myself read any further.

I liked the premise of this story, seeing as how it's set in a time period that I don't usually read about, but the translations are too horrid to read this fluently. I can understand that it takes a tremendous amount of time to translate novels from other languages, and I love all the translators who put in so much work... more>> and effort into translating novels for free for us readers. I get it, it's a lot of work, I do not want to come across as unappreciative, but if the quality of the translations detract from the story so much it can make it extremely jarring for readers to not only read but its also hard to connect to the story. If you are putting effort into translating, at least don't just machine translate and leave it in such a bad state. It's lazy work, and honestly a waste of time for the translator and reader.

In the very first chapter, I was trying to understand what was being said, forget that pronouns were used incorrectly, or that sentences are disjointed, but in many instances, the whole sentence doesn't even make any sense. I have read other novels where translations aren't amazing, but I've been able to understand and go on reading, not so in this novel, as of when I'm writing this review.

Here is just one sample from the first chapter:

"Isn’t this? Your luck?” Lin Jingyi is not such a madman, but she is a courtesy, and evil is evil. Obviously the person in the mouth of the meal is “mad.”

Like, what does that even mean? How do you even try to fix that sentence in your head to continue reading the story?

All in all, I hope this novels translations get edited and maybe I'll have another go at it in the future. <<less