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Happy Monday, fairies!
I hope you had a peaceful weekend filled with lots of reading!
Welcome to day one of our readalong of The Girl with No Reflection by Keshe Chow! I am thrilled to be reading this with you all and I hope you love it!
Since today is the first day, we’ll be reading from the beginning to the end of Chapter 11. It’s time to get cosy and dive in!
When you’ve finished today’s section, catch up with me in the comments down below so we can discuss the beginning of the book. Happy reading!
Please be warned, the following section will include spoilers for The Girl with No Reflection by Keshe Chow from the beginning to the end of Chapter 11. Please only read on if you have finished reading this section!
–!SPOILERS!–
The book is starting with some creepy atmospheric vibes with a hint of danger in the air! Our main character Ying Yue is set to marry the crown prince and is in her private garden at the Imperial Palace when she senses that she isn’t alone…
As Ying Yue turns to leave she again senses something in the water and feels lured to go and see what it is… nooo don’t do it! She sees her reflection and feels relieved but then something very scary happens, her reflection is smiling at her??
Ying Yue turns and sprints for her room… I mean I would’ve done that the second I felt watched… she passes a mirror and her reflection is gone but suddenly the reflection slams itself against the glass and looks like she wants to grab her through the mirror.
Ying smashes the mirror and it seems to drive her reflection away and it seems that her maid hadn’t seen any of that as the reflection has disappeared??
Ying is led away but swears she sees an eye in the broken glass watching her… I officially have the creeps!
Ying’s parents and four brothers visit her and they seem to have a very close family relationship.
It’s rumoured that the Imperial Shan family that Ying is about to marry into is cursed. The Empresses disappear and the ruling family have closed their palace gates to outsiders.
Her closest brother Hao Yu gifts her a ring, it has a secret compartment that contains poison just in case she needs it. There have been seven missing empresses and he’s worried…
Later when Ying Yue is alone her reflection reaches out a hand from the mirror…! Ying throws something and her reflection ends up with a crack in her arm and is bleeding black blood. She also looks scared? Ahhh that is so creepy but also why was her reflection scared?
We see Ying and the Crown Prince’s first interaction and it seems that they don’t get on, oh dear.
Ying has to serve the Emperor and Empress at the tea ceremony but an eye appears in the tea!
Ying startles and drops the tea, angering both the Prince and Emperor by helping a servant. The Empress tries to convey a message to Ying but Ying is confused about what she is trying to say.
There’s a bit of tension between Ying and the Prince. They argue and Ying begs to not be left alone in the room with the mirror. He ignores her and leaves anyway…
Left alone and upset, Ying isn’t able to defend herself in time when her reflection comes out of the mirror again… this time she is dragged by her hair into the mirror!!
When Ying awakes she has her first conversation with her reflection. The reflection says if they are doing their job perfectly then humans never notice them.
Ying’s reflection tells her she’s dying from their accident as children and suggests a deal with Ying Yue. The reflection needs sunlight to heal so she will marry the prince and Ying Yue can escape a loveless marriage. I am not sure if I believe her reflection?
Ying Yue agrees and her reflection leaves the mirror!
Left to explore the mirror world, Ying feels as though she has done the wrong thing. She decides to keep it a secret that she isn’t a reflection in case she meets other mirror people. Of course she is caught straight away by the mirror prince!
He tells her that he doesn’t blame Ying for wanting to get away from the prince as he’s seen the way that she’s been treated. I’m a bit suspicious though that he might know something she doesn’t…
Although Ying has stayed with the mirror prince, she gets careless and accidentally has been noticed by another reflection person, her maid Fei! Reflection-Fei version moves like a robot and like she has no mind of her own but she suddenly snaps out of her trance. She warns Ying that she shouldn’t be there before snapping back into her mindless trance like before… What is happening, this is so creepy!
Ying and the prince go into the garden but he’s suddenly in pain. The reflections can’t be too far away from their human version and the mirror prince is in pain. Ying tells him she’ll be fine alone, only she’s definitely not fine alone as it seems the mirror world will not let her go anywhere but the lake in the garden.
Ying enters the garden with the lake and suddenly a massive snake comes out of the water and tries to eat her! She ends up being dragged into the lake and hears a horrible screaming noise! Ying is sure she won’t survive it but mirror prince saves her!
Unfortunately Ying has been injured by the snake and it’s of course a poisonous snake.
The mirror prince takes her to be healed by Mei Po. She is healed and they tell her she was lucky. That the snake only exists in their world not hers but only goes after non-reflection people??
The screaming Ying had heard was her soul leaving her body… This makes her confused as she hadn’t heard that noise as a child when she had almost drowned.
The mirror prince is very anxious about Ying’s safety and romance is blossoming between the two! But it seems the prince is hiding things!
Ying finally talks to her reflection again, and the reflection makes a strange face when she hears that the prince had saved her. But she shows genuine concern for Ying when she hears what has happened and tells her to be careful…
That was an incredible start to the book, I am so intrigued! The world sounds beautiful and I can’t wait to explore it more!
What are thoughts about Ying Yue’s reflection? Do you think she’ll be evil?
What could the Imperial Family’s curse be?
I’ll see you all tomorrow for another day of reading!
Love,
Isla
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The Girl with No Reflection Readalong: Day 3!
Isla
18th September 2024
This one is so much more interesting that I was thinking based on the title and GoodReads. I’m hoping that Ying Yue’s reflection is not evil as so far I’ve really liked her, and I only think she just wants to survive. The Reflection-Prince however is way too nice and there must be something going on there. I did also like the normal prince, and I’m hoping Ying Yue will soon go back to normal world so we might see some more of him as well. I have no idea about the Family curse, but it must have something to do with all those missing brides from before. I don’t know about Chinese mythology a lot, but 7 missing brides feels like it has some significance. Excited to see what is going to happen tomorrow
I’m glad you are finding it interesting! And me too, her reflection hasn’t seemed to do anything bad so far, apart from scaring us all!
What are thoughts about Ying Yue’s reflection? Do you think she’ll be evil?
This has such weird horror/thriller vibes that I don’t even know what to think yet. I keep thinking of Coraline and Star Trek, neither of which had GOOD mirror people. At first I thought maybe these mirror people would be nice if their counterparts were bad, but I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.
What could the Imperial Family’s curse be?
I bet it has to do with mirrors LOL
The creepy horror vibes I’m loving! I really didn’t expect it! Yes I definitely don’t think it’s going to be simple at all…
This was an intriguing start. I don’t think she can trust her reflection. Not sure about Mirror Prince either – he seems suss.
I also think there’s something more to the story of when she nearly drowned when she was small – this is going to come back into the story later I think. I don’t have and theories on the curse atm.
I’m enjoying this so far without being wowed.
I love the world building with the concept of the mirror world and the mirror people. I think reflection Ying may be hiding a lot of things from our Ying
It’s such an interesting concept I agree! I agree with that! Although to what extent I’m not sure yet! 🤔
What at interesting story so far – and creepier than I expected!
I definitely do not trust Ying’s reflection. She was so quick to trade places without a lot of explanation. The Imperial Family’s curse must be related to these reflections and monsters – maybe that’s how the prior empresses went missing?
Excited to read and find out more.
Yes I didn’t expect it to be so creepy either! That’s very true, it did all seem very convenient!
What are thoughts about Ying Yue’s reflection? Do you think she’ll be evil?
I do think that she is evil. It doesn’t really make sense. Maybe it’s the goal of all Mirror People to take the place of the regular people? The Mirror Prince sounded so exhausted and angry that he always had to do what the Prince does in the real world.
What could the Imperial Family’s curse be?
Perhaps all of the women keep getting taken by the Mirror People.
No thoughts on the Imperial family just yet, but I do wanna say, if my reflection started moving on its own, I would have thrown all the mirrors out the window. No thank you. NO THANK YOU. All in all, I am actually really intrigued by how the story is going to unfold. I don’t really trust Reflection-Ying all that much and wished Ying actually put in some kind of failsafe clause in her agreement that will let her pull the plug on the operation before things go down. As is, being stuck in the Mirror World doesn’t bode well for Ying. Either everything is trying to kill her, or trying to keep her in one place.
I really don’t want to think about what I would do if my reflection started moving… Exactly! Ying doesn’t seem to safe in the real world or in the mirror world so I am excited to see what is going to happen!
I almost feel like the reflection world or at least her reflection and prince’s reflection are evil. I don’t trust them for some reason and I’m waiting for something to happen.
Maybe the curse is that the imperial family is trapped in the reflection world?
So excited for my first fairyloot book/readalong! The book looks amazing 🤩
I thought the beginning was extremely scary, to the point that I stopped reading it in the dark and continued in de morning 😅 but that did make the book very intriguing and I couldn’t put it away. Overall I’m very positive about this book, but I do have to say that I think the writing is not the best. Sometimes this gave me a little trouble with the imagery (which I normally have no problems with).
The mystery of the missing empresses sounds cool. Wondering if the voices ying herd are from them? Or maybe they are the fish??
I have to say, I absolutely don’t trust reflection-ying, think it was a bit of a weird reason to make ying swap with her. Also, if she would be good, I think she would approach the meeting more gently, not to just drag her into the mirror world. I also get a bit of a weird vibe from the mirror-prince, but the bookmark we got makes me think he could actually be good. Also, what was up with mirror-Fei acting weird!! Excited to see what will happen next!