I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Once again, as in Babel, R. F. Kuang demonstrates her prowess at writing terrible-but-intriguing characters. The satire about the publishing industry and Book Twitter is clearly self-referential and is not subtle, but it doesn't need to be; I cackled at many of June's ludicrous, racist inner thoughts--which I won't quote here, since the book isn't published, but which I did highlight in my eARC--and watching her eventual self-destruction felt like observing a horrific event from which I couldn't turn away. There's a mysterious cyberbullying thread that genuinely horrified me in a way that I didn't expect.

The ending feels lazy and lackluster compared to the rest of the book, unfortunately, but I tore through this in one day because I abandoned the other books I have to finish this week...so, that should tell you something about how compelling it is, depending on your interests.