This sprawling novel sports tags like #FemaleAwakening #BusinessWarfare #FeudsAmongTheElite and #QueenOfRevenge, but in truth, it's toxic drivel simmered under the label of female independence.
The author's fictional "parallel world" setting betrays a shallow understanding of real society. In 2025, we're still getting the stale "illegitimate daughter of a wealthy family seeks revenge" plot. The protagonist, Lin Zhaoxue, is touted as a business prodigy, but she's just the script of The Wolf of Wall Street dressed up in Chanel. The Rich Women's Club claims to support women, but in practice it manipulates big data. Calling that clever is an insult to business ethics. The author seems to think revenge can build a women's capitalist empire, but this is nothing more than a grotesque mashup of a Mary Sue fantasy and □□ films.
The novel's supposedly diverse female characters are really just a collection of labels: gold-digger, vengeful wife, scheming woman. They reinforce stereotypes about women. The author claims to explore the price of climbing the social ladder, yet the protagonists rise to the top by manipulating men and stabbing one another in the back. This toxic, backstabbing version of success is even more vulgar than street-stall fiction.
The twenty-year revenge plan is even more absurd. When Lin Zhaoxue discovers she's a puppet in her mother's revenge scheme, the novel suddenly starts discussing the conflict between morality and human nature, like a murderer reciting Crime and Punishment in court. The author tries to dress up rotten values as a journey of self-discovery.
In this fictional world, the characters write their lives with lies, betrayal, and revenge, glorifying a materialistic philosophy as a positive outlook on life. It's practically a literary guide to psychological manipulation. Women's fiction has transplanted the palace intrigue of Empresses in the Palace into the boardroom and upgraded the flaunting of wealth in Tiny Times into a capitalist empire. What it portrays isn't female awakening, but a spiritual anesthetic.
Theme: A story of a group of women fighting their way up and growing in a world where power, wealth, love, and friendship intertwine
