Becca's Book Bonanza!

I give it a 2.5. It was really hard for me to get into, cause none of the characters really had much for me to care about except for Emiko. Emiko's parts were the only ones to really keep my interest, even though they were painful, I still felt for her and wanted things to get better for her.

I think this book was not served well by the audio book version I listened to. It was good quality, the narrator is good, but audio books let me zone out unlike real books and I feel like I missed a lot of the story cause I zoned out too much.

It was hard for me to understand the end and how all the political games were working out cause my zoning out had made it so that I didn't fully know who all these characters were and their relationship to each other and the government.

I think I got most of it though. Somdet Chaopraya was a bodyguard to the Queen, right? Does that give him any special political powers? Akkarat was an Environment Ministry person, but I'm not really sure how he fits in there. Anderson arranging troops really surprised me and left me confused.

I like how Kanya's story ended up, but it seems like things will just end up the same way they were before.

I really enjoyed seeing Emiko free at the end. She didn't get to her windup village, but this life seems just as good for her. Nobody is her master and she can live freely. I'm interested in where things go with Gibbons. He is such a creeper! But the last scene with him saying he could help Emiko, left me hopeful for her :)