Would have given it a 4 star if it wasn't for the long winded religiosity of it all at some point of the book. Dont have a problem with religion, but Young Ha Kim went on for a few pages and honestly I ended up having to skip through those parts(I never skip pages nor do I like to). Other than that, I quite enjoyed it. There are a lot of characters which might get frustrating but it makes sense given the context of the book. The switches in between specific characters and the political climate of the nations were quite interesting also. Sometimes the narratives for political turmoil were long, which was annoying as I would have preferred for the accounts to have been equally measured or short alternate accounts. The reason for my frustration might have been because I was rooting for/ hoping for a hasty reconciliation between Jeonsu and Ijeong so anything else felt like it was taking away from those two. In spite of the minor irritations, the novel is intriguing. If you are a history buff, then I think you'd enjoy this. Even if you aren't, it's a way to learn something new.