Heiress Apparently (Daughters of the Dynasty #1)

Great, fun, quick read. Enjoyed the characters and the plot. Excited to read the sequel!

3.5 Stars

Heiress Apparently by Diana Ma is a story of family secrets that also touches upon the film industrys perpetuation of harmful stereotypes. I enjoyed the Beijing setting, and the main characters excitement for acting and desire to challenge offensive Asian representation was a pleasant surprise. The pacing is slow, but there are still many elements of the book that I found enjoyable that outweigh this.

This book tells the story of a girl who gets cast to play the lead role in a movie and travels to Beijing for filming, despite her mothers ominous warning that she should never set foot in Beijing. When she arrives, she realizes she looks exactly like a famous socialite, and she doesnt understand why the paparazzi are so interested in her. I always love to see books with a theme of family, so these aspects were engaging for me. This book also has a great setting, and I loved getting to experience the culture of Beijing along with Gemma.

INTERESTING MAIN CHARACTER

Gemma herself is an interesting character, and I enjoyed her voice. It is easy to feel her passion for acting, and I loved how she follows her dreams despite what her parents, and everyone else, think. Through her character, there is an important commentary on the casting of Asian characters to fit harmful stereotypes. While she is working on the film, Gemma learns to speak up and question the representation within the directors vision. I was not expecting this aspect, but I found that it was well done.

PACING IS A BIT OFF

One of my main issues with the book is the pacing. To me, it is so slow, but also so rushed. There is a lot of filler as well as many info dumps, which I didnt care for, and I had trouble focusing on this one. I also think the twists could have been better executed as much of the book is almost painfully predictable. However, I was willing to somewhat overlook this because of the books messages.

FAMILY SECRETS AND CHINESE HISTORY

Heiress Apparently by Diana Ma is a story about family and challenging harmful representations on screen. I loved the setting and the main characters passion for acting. However, I wasnt a fan of the slow pacing, but while the book is very predictable, I was mostly willing to forgive this. I would recommend this to those who are interested in books about family secrets, and learning more about Chinese history along the way.

This was not the book for me. I was really excited for the fun, royalty aspects of this book, but they just didn’t pan out like I hoped they would.

First, this book is classified as YA, but felt more adult. The main character is a recent high school graduate and all of her friends are adults living their adult life. I didn’t mind that it was more adult; I just went in thinking I was getting something different from this book.

Second, it was just kinda boring…I hate saying that about books, but I didn’t know how else to describe this one. There just seemed to be a lot of filler information that was unnecessary and not very interesting. Much of this book could have been done away with really. It wasn’t even the pacing really. Things seemed to move pretty swiftly throughout the book. It was just the content.

Lastly, the romance was just lacking. I don’t really have much to say about this other than I expected more.

I appreciated the diversity and liked that it pointed out some important flaws and things that are being done wrong in society. Other than that, I wasn’t a fan of this book.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I had such a fun experience reading HEIRESS APPARENTLY!

It was satisfying to see Gemma Huang’s growth and development throughout the story: from pursuing her dreams as an actress to raising her voice while fighting for her role. Furthermore, Ma created a mysterious atmosphere when it came to Gemma’s family secrets.

I absolutely loved that this novel is based on the most famous Empress of China, Wu Zetiang – I still can see before my eyes Fan Bing Bing’s beautiful portrayal of Wu Zetiang and all the media references regarding Asian characters (“Crazy Rich Asians” to mention one). As someone who used to binge watch Chinese drama since I was little, several passages resonated with me and I kept nodding while being infused with nostalgic feeling. The depiction of traditional Chinese parents and “perfect-child-comparison” was spot on plus the usage of pin yin only increased the familiarity with this novel. Ultimately, the mention of Chinese history was the cherry on the top of cake.

I thought that Gemma’s mother being involved in art history was a refreshing approach since I rarely read the combination China-art. We see a few (or almost none) Asian representation in media and I found it relevant how Ma brought this subject matter to our attention, also highlighting that Asians are not monolith.

What I also adored was the mention of food (hum bao, you tiao, turnip cake and moon cake), Mooncake festival and Chinese customs. There’s queer representation in this novel and I was rooting for the cute love story.
My only small critique is that I found the revelation at the end anti-climatic as I was expecting a bit more.
HEIRESS APPARENTLY is a lovely YA novel that shows you the preciousness of standing for your beliefs and the unbreakable bond of family. I am looking forward to reading the sequel.

[ I received an eARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review ]

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