I absolutely loved this! These are exactly the sort of stories I hope to see more and more often (particularly at the middle-grade level), especially considering the state of the world. I’m sincerely praying Zhao and other authors like them receive more and more support because we *need* their stories in the world—including book two of this series! That ending was a gut punch! I can’t express how much *I have to know what happens next*. I love that one of the major themes of this story is the complexity of humanity and its motivations. None of us are all one thing. The best of us can be corrupted by greed, power, trauma, etc., and the worst of us can find redemption if we’re willing to accept responsibility for the harm we’ve done and put in the work to be and do better and make things right. I also love how much Chinese history, culture, and mythology are spread throughout the book and how Zhao makes it very clear that nothing about China and its people is monolithic and shows how complicated a person’s connection to their culture can be. I love how the knowledge and understanding Zack gains of Chinese history and his own heritage are integral to his ability to accomplish his goals and to the story itself. I also particularly appreciate that Zhao doesn’t shy away from any of the heavy stuff. They lay out the good and the bad, allowing the reader to see how important it is to understand the whole picture of history as much as possible in order to learn from it and keep from repeating the mistakes of the past. And the best part is that the reader is seeing and learning all of these things through the eyes of Zack, a multi-marginalized MC, who is learning who he is and what he comes from and to love, appreciate, and find power in both and gaining the strength to take a stand for what’s important even, and most especially, when that is difficult and/or scary. Honestly, Zack is a fabulous character, and the rest are pretty great as well—I mean, some of them are awful, but they’re intriguing nonetheless. Oh! And Eric Yang did an awesome job on the narration as well! So glad they got someone who could pronounce the Mandarin correctly because evidently there was some nonsense going on with the publisher hiring a voice actor who was not a native Mandarin speaker and could not handle the pronunciation at all.