The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Title: Goodbye, My Princess

Series: Standalone

Author: Fei Wo Si Cun

Genre: Young Adult, Tragedy, Romance, Historical, Translated

Rating: 5 stars

Review:

The only thing more dangerous than a king is his heir in this first English translation of the romantic tragedy that inspired the popular TV series from one of China’s best-known authors of heartbreak—perfect for readers of Captive Prince and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation.

There is no room for love in an empire.

Qu Xiaofeng has been living in Shangjing for three years now. A naïve, happy-go-lucky treaty bride from the desert kingdom of Xiliang, she has everything she could ever want as the crown princess of the Li Empire—everything except the crown prince’s heart.

Because Li Chengyin is a heartless boy. Cruel, jealous, and ruthless, he has given his adolescence to the cutthroat contention for the throne and, now that he is the heir presumptive, largely ignores his bride in favor of the girl he seems to really love.

Xiaofeng doesn’t mind…much. It leaves her more time to sneak out of the manor to go drinking and riding in the streets, living just the way she wants to. But one day another boy shows up, claiming to be a sweetheart from a life she can’t remember having lived. As Xiaofeng puzzles out the tangled threads of her past and her complicated feelings about the enigmatic, distant husband she loves and hates in equal measure, what she doesn’t realize is that she’s setting a course straight to tragedy.

Because the only place more dangerous than the palace is the crown prince’s court, the only thing harder to be than a king is his heir, and the path to the throne is paved with blood. Power will always have its price—the only question is if Xiaofeng will survive long enough to pay. – summary from Goodreads

Be prepared to be devastated! Goodbye, My Princess hits you right in the feels and leaves you heartbroken for these characters!

This was actually a really good book! I didn’t know what to expect from this book, and I was expecting it to be a tragedy, but I did not expect it to hit me the way it did.

I like to read tragedies from time to time, but often they don’t affect me very much. This might be because I often spoil it for myself, so I am better prepared for it. However, this book I did my best not to spoil it, and even when I did know something, this book kept me guessing until the end.

The characters were amazing! I felt for every single one of them. Especially our main character, Xiaofeng. She was such a lovely character. She liked to live life and could not understand the rules surrounding being the wife to an heir, which made her even more endearing. I loved her so much, and her story was so tragic.

There were a lot of facets to her story. This was fairly grounded in reality, with the exception of the River Oblivion. There are two love stories in this book, which only compounded the tragedy! All through reading that part of the story, I was like how is this going to play out? And then it played out in a way I never imagined and furthered my grief!

Li Chengyin is not a good person, but I still was so sad for him. One of the things that this book did so well, and it reminds me of A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang this way, and what makes it have more of an impact was the inevitability of it all. There is also this knowledge that everything would be okay if the environment was different and if he was raised a different way. It makes it so much more of a tragedy in my eyes because of this. He was also a complex and confusing character, which made me more interested in him.

I do think they cared about each other in their own way, which makes it that much worse!

There was no spice in this book, but it was not appropriate for people under the age of sixteen in my mind. Not only were there some things that weren’t the best, but it is also a long and somewhat complex book that I don’t think younger people will enjoy.

The main part of the book is roughly three-hundred-seventy pages long, with the rest of it being short stores. I was tempted to skip the short stories and am so glad I didn’t. Do not skip the stories at the end! They really add to the story! We get to see the love story from key players in the book and how they felt about it. We also get more of an understanding why some things happened that we didn’t get in the main part of the book because Xiaofeng wasn’t in the position to know. Through these stories we see Xiaofeng in a new light, as well as Chengyin. There is also this story from a consort in the palace, and in the main story you don’t really care about her but from this you can the perpetuation of tragedy because of the court. The final story I felt wasn’t the most important, but it does show how the tragedy could continue into future generations because of the system in place.

Spoiler alert: Chengying grieving thirty years later because of his grief surrounding what happened to Xiaofeng really got me.

The author really thought of everything. Everything connected to each other, and a lot of things connected to the relationship between Chengyin and Xiaofeng. I also really liked how the translator gave a brief explanation of what it means to be the crown prince during this time, and it added a great deal to the story. There were also a lot of references to classic poetry, and the translator shared where those came from in little foot notes.

I will say the chapters were incredibly long, as long as ninety pages. I didn’t find it too difficult to leave off in the middle of a chapter, though.

Goodbye, My Princess is a tragedy that takes place in historical China in the crown prince’s court. With romance, political plots, and secrets this is book sure to break your heart!

Quotes:

“‘You said that people are selfish, that we only value our own lives, that the only reason I would want to save a child is if I was the one who pushed him. But you’re wrong. I risked my life for him because he’s a child and I was scared he was going to drown. And that’s the way the world should be.

‘Just because you’re selfish doesn’t mean everyone else is.’”

“I smile at him, even if I know it must be ugly. I smile even if it hurts, because if this is the last time we see each other, I want him to remember me smiling.”

“I can forget everything about you, I can forget the person themself, but the one thing I can’t forget is the feeling of loving you.”