Reviews with content warning for Ableism - She Who Became the Sun

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She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

121 reviews

emmyelizabeth's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

Soooo unserious

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nannahnannah's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book has taken me months to figure out how to review. I'm so torn about so many aspects! I love it, but there's so much that I take issue with at the same time. The few things I know with complete certainty is that 1. that cover is absolutely stunning, 2. the title is also excellent, 3. and I kind of wish that Shelley Parker-Chan was my best friend/writing buddy.

Representation:
- half of the POV characters are Chinese; the other half are Mongolian
- the MC and her love interest are sapphic; the MC seems to be asexual or stone butch
- the love interest is a nomad

In 1345 China, Mongol rule has left the peasants of the Central Plains starving and at the mercy of bandits. Of the Zhu family's nine children, only two are still alive. The brother is bestowed a great fate from the local fortuneteller, and the sister is told she is nothing. But when the bandits come, it is the brother who falls into nothingness—and the sister, desperate to survive, seizes his name and his fate. In her search for the greatness her brother was promised, she will become a monk, a general, a wife, an archenemy, and—revealed at the very end—an actual figure in China's history. She will do anything to seize her brother's greatness.

What struck me initially about the book was the prose. I love how mature and yet how readable the style is and how it bursts with character. It's not just written to be played in my head like a movie (and no, those writing styles are not worse in any way, I just have a soft spot for books that don't necessarily mean for the readers to insert themselves inside them). I also love how—and other people may disagree with me—the characters think more like people would in the actual 1300s rather than trying to tone down some of the things we know now to be pretty offensive or unfair. Like the protagonist, Zhu, obsessing over her gender, but also often limiting her gender to her body—i.e it's her female body that carries her "nothing fate"—even though the author themselves is non-binary and probably doesn't do this in real life (I'm assuming).

In a book for younger readers, I would probably think differently, but I'm glad Parker-Chan trusts their adult audience to be able to discern the difference between a character from a different time period and their own views. I've read so many books were the author either doesn't trust their audience enough or isn't brave enough (or their agent/publisher wasn't brave enough) to write characters who don't have current-era views. It can be exhausting to read morally correct characters in every single story. Or at least where the main character is the moral center of a story.

As the book progresses, though, the prose descends into telling and summarizing either things I wish it could show or just summarizing way too much. Add to that and exhausting amount of repetition of Zhu's desire for GREATNESS and how nothing else matters and how she will do anything to achieve this because this is her fate and she will be GREAT. It's hard to completely be on board with her goal, too, because unlike at the beginning when she took her brother's fate in order to survive, I just can't understand completely why she wants to be so great. I don't need to empathize with a main character's goal, but I do need to understand why the character would want it. This problem and the way she and her archenemy Ouyang, the eunuch general fighting for the Mongols, seem to be able to read five different emotions in a single eye twitch became pretty tiring.

Which is too bad, because I really do love how these (actually) morally gray characters think and interact to create this epic historical drama like the ones I like to watch—and the ones that the author actually admitted to inspiring this work, which makes sense.

I also do love the way Zhu and Ouyang's storylines parallel each other, especially when it comes to the way they feel about their gender. I think gender (and dysphoria) was particularly handled masterfully in this book, to be honest. It was my favorite thing about the whole story.

I think overall the book needed more editing. Maybe it was rushed or maybe the author was too fond of what she'd written, but it never does actually stick in one style and then places feels too clumsy. For everything that I love, there is something else that I have the urge to critique. But I do believe that Parker-Chan could become an incredible writer, because what they do well they do so damn well. I'm definitely going to read whatever they write next.

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jodean's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

everyone should read this book

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chrisljm's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book has been marketed so heavily as a fantasy but it’s really not. There are only two fantastical elements and they’re not even that important to the story.

This is a story about fate and how the main character seeks greatness with hers. Although an interesting premise, I didn’t really enjoy how the story was told. It’s like the meme about Zuko’s honor except it’s a billion times worse because all the main character talks about is her fate/greatness, it was incredibly excessive (fate was mentioned 145 times, greatness 50 times). I think the main character started off interesting, but something about the way we see her through other POVs made me so unattached to her, and I really didn’t care if she succeeded or failed.

I think one of the worst things is that she wanted Ma as a way to remind her of empathy and to keep her from becoming like the men she hated, but at the end that’s who she became anyways. And I especially hate how Ma feared a life where all her thoughts, feelings, and wants are ignored, yet in the end she stays with Zhu because she loves her even though she knows that means a life of pain. I don’t find that romantic at all; I think that’s terribly sad and love shouldn’t contain so much suffering. A line in the end from Zhu’s POV says “Zhu’s desire propelling them higher and higher, until there was nothing left above them but the dazzling vault of Heaven. And for Ma every moment of that ascent would be compromise and heartache and the gradual erosion of her belief that there was always a kinder way. . . I’ll make it worth it, for both of us.” I just don’t see how anything could possibly make that pain worth it.

I think maybe a large part of why I didn’t enjoy the book that much is because my beliefs/the way I see the world is so vastly different from the main characters, and so my disappointment might just be a me problem.

But also, the story moves so slowly it’s kind of hard to read in large chunks. A lot happens but it doesn’t feel like it, and I don’t want to say it’s boring, but it was hard not to zone out. There are also times where parts of a scene happen off screen? I don’t know if this is just a writing style or what, but it was confusing because instead of reading what happens, I have to infer for myself because the author likes to describe emotions first and events second.

For instance during the scene where Ouyang cuts off Zhu’s hand, they’re fighting and all of a sudden they’re not fighting because something is clearly wrong and then “her fingers clenched around the sword in her lower body”, and then on the next page his sword flashes and there’s an impact and every feeling is described and then you’re told her hand is missing.

I just feel like this book was more frustrating to read than it had to be.

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leonormsousa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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chalkletters's review against another edition

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dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

To keep things interesting, I make every effort not to read similar books too close together, but, actually, it’s always interesting when the universe intervenes. Reading (or watching) two stories with similar themes throws them into comparison with one another, which lights up different thoughts about them both. She Who Became the Sun and Devices and Desires are both low-magic military fantasies with characters who ruthlessly pursue their goals.

Of the two, She Who Became the Sun engages with its themes in a much more rounded way. Zhu Chongba is self-aware enough to self-describe as unempathetic, something which doesn’t seem as though it would occur to any of K J Parker’s characters. She Who Became the Sun is at its most charming in the early chapters, when Zhu’s ambitions are primarily her own continued survival. Fans of fantasy con artists will especially enjoy Zhu’s problem-solving at the monastery. Shelley Parker-Chan balances Zhu’s ability to compartmentalise emotions with other characters: both Ma Yingzi and General Ouyang have more than their fair share of emotional turmoil.

Though Zhu continues to put her smarts to good use throughout, the middle of She Who Became the Sun is less engaging if you’re not a fan of military stories. Shelley Parker-Chan doesn’t go overboard with tactical battle details, but perhaps because of that the stakes don’t feel as immediate. The drama moves onto a much larger scale, and so loses some of the human interest. That said, the relationships on both sides play out in serpentine ways, elevating the subplots to the point where they are more rewarding than the plot is.

Towards the end, Shelley Parker-Chan weaves everything together into an ending that hits hard and really highlights Zhu’s journey, while still giving a sense of how far she has to go, and potentially, what depths she’ll have to reach to get there. Themes and characters coalesce, and its clear that the plot is well thought-through.

I just find, personally, I’m not that interested in where it’s going… This might be a book for readers who can engage with the themes on a more sophisticated level, because She Who Became the Sun feels like it will reward that level of attention.

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