A review by oosij
A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang

4.5

absolutely heartbreaking and maddening and beautiful all at once. this played out exactly like a sageuk k-drama in my head as i read this (i know it's chinese, but my korean ass brain just automatically inserted sageuk material and kept jumping back and forth between korean and chinese visuals lol), and it was so incredibly to eat it up. 

ann liang paints a rich world of a broken kingdom torn apart by war, and one of the lines (i'll paraphrase badly: they weren't killed by [one side], they were killed by the war- by two kings at play) will stick with me for a long time to come. this is my second liang read, and it's made me so excited to pick up her other books. she's so incredibly gifted in writing romance, in my opinion, and it's honestly refreshing to read a beautifully crafted non-spicy romance... though i will say romance isn't this book's main genre, so don't get into this if you're wishing for a feel-good HPE type of love story. 

docked off half a star for the ending, as i'm not really into the whole
beyond-the-grave
thing, but i will say liang wrote it so... prettily??? that a tiny part of me doesn't care at all lol. 
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