Quick Synopsis – Two palace exiles and the adopted son of the King plot to overthrow the king by manipulating city wide games. There’s violence, sex, a religious cult, and body jumping. Oh my!

Song this reminds me of – That’s Not My Name – The Ting Tings

Publication Date – July 18, 2023

Rating – 2 out of 5 stars

Review – I bought this as my July Book of the Month and honestly I did not like this book. I was influenced because I’ve seen so much hype about Chloe Gong’s other novels. Let’s dive in shall we!

The story is told through multiple viewpoints, mostly Calla, Anton, and August. Though there are several other points of view throughout, some of which are secondary characters and others are just minor characters. The POVS are intertwined throughout the novel and this can be kind of confusing especially because Anton and August’s names are so close. Not to mention the bodyjumping. Several times I had to flip back pages to figure out who was talking.

This book is being compared to Hunger Games, but there isn’t really anything thing Hunger Games about it. The game in question is 80ish contestants in the city of San-Er killing each other for money. The winner gets enough money to escape the city and live in what we assume is peace. Calla is the hidden princess who killed her parents, August is the adopted Prince/heir to the throne, and Anton is an exiled aristocrat who body jumps because his birth body is held by the palace as punishment. Because body jumping is illegal, though it seems like everyone can do it.

Anton and Calla are in the games where body jumping is made legal for the duration of the game to make it more interesting. Prince August is behind the scenes trying to get Calla to win so he can depose the King. The plot it’s self seems like it would be pretty straight forward, but it is so muddy. There are so many plot points that are introduced that ultimately go nowhere or are so half-baked it’s hard to imagine where she was going with the narrative. Even the main mystical concept of the book, using your qi to jump into someone else’s body, isn’t really explained. It’s meant to be illegal, but it also seems like everyone is capable of jumping. There’s also human trafficking for empty vessels (bodies that have been abandoned by the original owner), and all kinds of other little points that honestly make no sense.

Also this is not like the Hunger Games, because there is no game aspect other than kill each other. In the very beginning there is a portion where they have to fight for bags of coins and weapons, that is about as close as it gets to game-like. There is also pretty intense technology like cameras, GPS, trackers, and other gadgets, but no cars? No air travel? It just wasn’t thought out.

There is one and like a half sex scenes, but uhh to put it blunt there was way to much mention of bodily fluids for me to consider it sexy. I was mostly just grossed out.

Was this book not what I expected? Yep. Am I still going to read the rest of them? Probably, but I don’t have to like it.