Empress Orchid is the fictionalised account of China’s last empress, the dowager Cixi, and her rise to power during turbulent times in China’s history. It raises important feminist and political issues, framed within an intriguing plot centring around the concubines of the Forbidden City.
Based on that description, I should have loved this! However, I’m finding it tough to rate. I think I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have, purely based on bad timing. It’s definitely a ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ situation. This book was a buddy read with two friends on Instagram (@ab_reads and @thereaderswardrobe), and they both seemed to enjoy it immensely. Abbie even described it as an 1800s Chinese ‘Game of Thrones’ which I would agree with; just don’t expect it to be quite so amazing and action-packed!!
I found the book slow to start and had trouble making progress. I believe this was due to the writing style because the plot was fascinating! Min’s descriptions are very heavy and often just degenerate into lists that I found myself skimming. This made the beginning of the book a bit of a slog to get through.
Things did pick up and I found myself more interested after the first 70 or so pages (I know what you’re thinking; ‘that’s a long time to wait for a book to get interesting!‘ But again, I think the issue was with me and not the book itself). The political intrigues of the court and Orchid’s daily struggles as a wife/mother began to hold my attention and, despite some hard-to-swallow details, I found myself enjoying the story more. The last 100 pages were especially riveting.
I believe if I read this at another time, I would have loved it and I do recommend you read it for yourself if you’re at all interested in Chinese history or stories of political scheming! I may try to reread it in the future (though who am I kidding, my TBR is crushing me right now).
Overall, a very mixed bag of a book! 3.5 stars
