Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - The Emperor and the Endless Palace

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang

18 reviews

irisandfoxglove's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I was so entertained, turned on (it was barely 4% in and the horniness was going off the charts 🥵) and invested with this story! To me, this is a fantastic debut although some things could've been tweaked here and there like a bit further work on character development in a few characters to make pop even more, but overall there's mastery in Justinian Huang's writing and storytelling which made it such a worthwhile read to me regardless. If it weren't for some things I personally didn't vibe with the book (re: the way hard drugs use is depicted, it's totally a me thing, no judgement whatsoever to the author) it could've been a fiver for me. But I really enjoyed this tale of lust, betrayals, revenge, unfinished love stories which turn into obsessions, past lives, and how being a greedy, opportunistic mf steals actual precious things from you.

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madscanread's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Three men who find each other throughout multiple lifetimes just to repeat the same mistakes in their love, lust, and violence over and over and over again.

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tonyaf's review

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

This is a blend of two queer Chinese love stories, Passion of the Cut Sleeve and Huang Jiulang, reimagined into a reincarnation story. This concept is brilliant, but the execution wasn't fully successful. The characters and relationships all felt flat and unlikeable to me.

It's also not really a romance, so this may be a case of the book's marketing leading to unfair expectations. Don't go into this thinking it's going to be a grand, romantic love story. This is not that at all!

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gaelstorm's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book was interesting and unique! I struggled to pick a rating because part of me liked it more than 3 stars but it also fell flat other times.... So I guess I'll settle for a middle of the road 3 stars with a slight leaning upwards. It was a great story concept but I wish there had been a bit more character development and that it had continued with more of the plots than it did. Since we follow 3 different timelines (which I loved), that unfortunately means that each timeline got less attention than I thought it deserved (each one could have been a full novel!). I am so glad I read it though! I flew through it and enjoyed a lot of it.

Warning: this is not a romance book in the sense of the romance book genre. It's a romance in the way that Romeo & Juliette is a romance; the story is all about love and star-crossed lovers. So don't be disappointed when it doesn't really fit into the "romance genre." The genres are more fantasy, mythology-retelling, thriller, with the main plot centering on romance, but not the romance genre.

Content Warning! (I'll put this here as well as in StoryGraph's content warning section)
This book contains a fair fit of sex, and while some of it is consensual, quite a lot of it is either non-consensual or questionably consensual (e.g. drugs involved). However, I don't feel like those scenes were romanticized too much (at least how I interpreted it); it's definitively part of the plot that people are taking advantage and not being great people. At the same time, the scenes also weren't gratuitously violent or super traumatic in my opinion, but read with caution if this will upset you! Like I said above, this is not a typical feel-good romance.

<b>❤️ What kind of romance can I expect in this book?</b>
(no major plot spoilers but still hidden if you don't wanna know)

Genders: m/m
POV: 1st person POV, 3 different timelines, rotating every chapter
Themes & Tropes: star-crossed lovers, unrequited love, mythology retelling, reincarnation
Sex Scenes? Yes
Explicit Rating: R
How Much: quite a lot but not in a way that felt like constant smut, and not all were consensual, see content warnings if you need to

Content Warnings