This is not a romantasy book like I expected. The most fantastical part of the story is how beautiful Xishi is, besides the fact that

it becomes a ghost story for the last twenty pages.

And I definitely wouldn't call this a romance novel.

Xishi is chosen to use her beauty to charm the king of a neighboring kingdom in order to spy and bring the kingdom down. Because of the premise, I tried not to be too annoyed at everyone talking about Xishi's beauty. However, that doesn't excuse how obsessed she is with the looks of Fanli, the advisor training her. The feelings between them feel so shallow. He has no personality, and I have no idea what they like about each other besides their appearance. Then he's entirely out of the picture once she starts spying.

While she's in the palace, none of Xishi's successes feel earned. It all feels too easy. The only reason she can succeed at all is because the king, Fuchai, is incredibly stupid. I still liked him more than Fanli though. In fact, despite Fuchai being a terrible person who is quick to punish his subjects with the death penalty, I still kinda wanted Xishi to be with him because he's at least somewhat interesting.

I kept reading out of curiosity because I wanted to see if it would really be devastating in the end. And yes, there are four pages that are really good and beautifully devastating. The rest, however, is just devastatingly awful.