The Scarlet Alchemist started off strong, but then the plot twists started piling up on each other with no rhyme or reason. A dark and gory Chinese historical fantasy, it explores racism/xenophobia and classism. Zifan struggles to fit into a society that refuses to accept her because of her half-Western heritage, but

when it's revealed that she's been resurrected, her name mysteriously changes from Su Zifan to So Zifan at the end of the book, which is a wild inconsistency

. Also, for all that Zifan is supposed to be a brilliant alchemist, she's annoyingly stupid,

outright talking about rebellion in the royal palace and hanging around trying to figure out what happened to the pearls in the library when Wenshu is rightfully pointing out that they need to gtfo. On alchemy: why on earth would you put your brother's soul into your lover's body? Ew ew ew. Speaking of the prince's body, the romance came out of nowhere and wasn't even a believable enemies to lovers plot. Lastly, there's a giant gaping plothole: if bringing people back drains loved ones' qi to keep them alive...then how are Wenshu, Yufei, and Zilan alive at the end of the book?