3.5 stars? The book may have suffered from being read so shortly after the amazing Homegoing. Everything felt flat in comparison to those lush descriptions - a schematic illustration to Gyesi's masterful painting. It's not a fair comparison - different genres, at the very least. But then the use of the genre seems... not exactly cliche, but certainly wasted, pedantic rather than narrative.

This is not to say I didn't enjoy the book, or that it's not a good book - only that it could've been much better.