Riri

Another great installment to the series.

Vol. 13 starts by wrapping up the incident in the previous book, delivering a conclusion to Julius and Barbara's story, before Mia returns to Tearmoon for summer break. This year, she brings some of the SEEC program children home to figure out why Patricia was sent to the future. That question remains unanswered for now though, as this book is still setting up the plot for the upcoming climax. There are new characters introduced, as well as a new conflict that will have to be settled in a horsemanship contest. Can't have a Tearmoon Empire book without horses, you know.

This volume is also hinting that Ruby's romance with Vanos might see some progress soon, as well as giving Keithwood a potential future partner. It's been a while since we saw Ruby after all. Keithwood's focus had always been on Sion, but Sion has resolved his own issues a few books ago so they finally have room to breathe now. Not gonna lie, I actually really enjoy seeing all the side characters finding their own romance. Especially since Mia and most of her friends have been nicely paired off with each other.

Oh, and while this is shown in a really subtle way… this book proves that Bel, after receiving a better life and education in the future, has also become more clever overall. She can read the room and think for herself much better than she used to. Even if she's still struggling with her academic grades, at least she no longer has to spend the whole summer at school due to bombing her exams. Baby steps, but it's still character growth.

My only complaint is that while the overall translation quality has improved from vol. 12, there are still a few mistakes and typos. They're not that bad, but it'd still make you wonder how they got past QC. Mistaking the word "wary" for "weary" should be something basic, and yet it happened twice in a single chapter. Hopefully this will be improved in the next book. As always, if you need proofreaders you can always hire me!

After the events in the previous book, vol. 12 marks the beginning of a new arc. Bel has returned, but this time with a mysterious girl who may or may not be Mia's grandmother, Patricia. Since last time Bel very clearly died in front of so many people, the day has finally come for Mia to tell her friends about Bel's identity and origins. This comes with a brand new theory by Ludwig about the different timelines, which also explains why a lot of the characters have been seeing dreams from the guillotine world.

The book's main focus lies on the new SEEC program, established by Mia to educate children who are vulnerable to the Chaos Serpents' influence. The main reason is because Patricia seems to have been indoctrinated by the serpents due to family circumstances, and despite supposedly being her granddaughter, Mia doesn't remember much about Patricia's house. Or maybe she just doesn't want to remember. There's a number of new characters introduced, and the now 16-year-old Mia spends a lot of time thinking about the best way to run the SEEC program smoothly.

Speaking of Mia, the important decisions she makes are gradually becoming less accidental and more intentional. She's still highly powered by sweets and her motivations are still mostly selfish, of course, this is Mia after all… but there's been less moments of people simply misunderstanding her intentions and more of her actually leaving things up for interpretation on purpose. I really like how her character growth is undeniable, and yet Mia is still Mia at the core.

This book ends in a cliffhanger though, so I waited until vol. 13 was out to pick it up. Since it's the start of a new arc, it spends a lot of time laying the foundations and setting things up. There's also a bonus short story about Mia's personal maid from the previous timeline, which gives some more depth to not only the maid but Mia as well. It made me realize once again that Mia might have made terrible choices in that timeline, but she's always been so much more than just a selfish princess. I love her, and I will never get tired of reading about her.

That being said, I have to take off one star because of the translation. So far the series has been brilliantly translated and edited, but what happened to the QC for this one? There are so many errors that shouldn't have passed the editing stage. For example:

⇢ When Patricia was bathing they mistranslated 白い肌 to "ebony skin" while it should've been pale or ivory.

⇢ "このクッキーを少し持って行っていただけるかしら？" was translated to "Do you mind if I share some of these with them?" Failing to grasp context. This was Mia asking Lynsha to go deliver the cookies, not asking for the permission to do so herself. Japanese is a very context-heavy language, so this sort of translation fail is fatal because it could change the meaning entirely.

⇢ "Mia’s expression made a three-sixty, becoming an ebullient grin." …Isn't it one-eighty? Three-sixty would be the exact same expression, no? The original only says Mia's expression turns into a radiant smile, so this part didn't even exist.

It didn't ruin my enjoyment or anything, but this sort of errors can be quite distracting. I hope it'll be better for the next book, since it was never an issue before this particular volume. If you need proofreaders, hire me.

How many women throughout history were blamed for the weaknesses of men? We made such convenient scapegoats. We were raised to be small, to be silent, to take whatever we were given and no more.

I did not love this and it makes me sad, since I loved all of Ann Liang's YA books. Maybe it would've been a more riveting tale if you've never heard of Xishi's tale before, but if you do, then you've pretty much already read this book. It's the exact same story as the legend, just with some romance thrown in and it's not even that good.

If you want a good romance, this is probably not for you. The instalove is strong, and I simply cannot understand why Ann Liang would make it like this when she's written much better romance before. Xishi and Fanli spent only ten weeks together for her training, most of which is done off-page by the way, and she proceeds to yearn for him for the rest of the book. The problem is that he leaves not even halfway through the story, so not only there's barely any development in their relationship, but we don't even see OR learn much about him. Fanli being hot is not enough reason for me to grow as attached to him as Xishi was, so their tragic love story didn't make me feel anything either.

As for Xishi herself, she has so many issues. Her perspective is just so... flat and detached from beginning to end. She also lacks the ability to think ahead, which makes her a terrible spy who managed to accomplish her mission simply because she's the main character. The portrayal of her life as a concubine and the way she seduced Fuchai is just impossible to believe. Both Xishi and Zhengdan don't act like how women were supposed to behave in ancient China either, but were never called out on it. There's just something that feels weirdly modern from the tone of this book, and the mismatch with the settings can be pretty distracting at times.

Not going to comment much on Fuchai. He may not be the best, but he deserves better. The moment of his downfall is probably the only time I felt some semblance of emotion in the entire book, and that was mostly pity.

There are so many plot points that either felt like they were just slapped on to drive the story along, or never went anywhere. Like Susu. Or Xishi's heart condition. Or how Fuchai's perceptive and cautious advisor was reduced to a simple bully before he got discarded. I understand there were limitations, seeing that the book is only 336 pages long, but it's still a shame.

Beautiful ending though. Love the tragedy.