Reviews

Empress by Shan Sa

sucrose's review against another edition

tense medium-paced

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

3.0

algae429's review

3.0

I loved the poetry of the language, but the timing of telling the story was odd. A long time was spent on her birth, but I felt the years of her marriage to Little Phoenix were rushed and then a long time was spent on her dying days. A lot of time was spent explaining how she felt old but that she kept busy, with hardly any indication of how she was keeping busy or what changes she was making to China.

She sounds fascinating, but I felt like I still don't understand very much about her.

christieb123's review against another edition

3.0

3.5 Really well written and a fascinating insight into a time period and culture I'm unfamiliar with. More sexual content than I expected.

the_f_reader's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

purrplenerd's review

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

cereuslyrico's review against another edition

4.0

I enjoyed it but If I had paid attention and known this was a fictional memoir of the Empress Wu Zetian and not just a story of a fictional empress I wouldn't have read it, but that's my personal bias.

torysampson's review against another edition

challenging reflective slow-paced

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

3.0

luna545's review

informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

kandicez's review against another edition

2.0

I am only a few pages in, and I already love her style!

Unfortunately, the book began great, but soon lost my interest. There were no details. In a paragraph, she went from a virgin, to a mother of four. I need a bit more than that! I really struggled even to finish. I need to be able to imagine what was happening to really enjoy, and retain historical fiction, and there just wasn't enough information to do that. This was just a long list of events and facts.

nchaidez's review against another edition

2.0

I wanted to really like this book...I really did. I absolutely love books that use actual historical events in fiction. This story is about the first and only empress of China - about what this author perceives as her thoughts and actions to that position. My struggle with this book is the style it was written in....it reads like one large poem (probably because the author is also a poet). There is so much minute detail in every description it's almost dizzying. While I appreciate understanding the pomp and circumstance, I would have instead preferred to see actual pictures as opposed to reading pages and pages describing a procession. In a nutshell, I had a very difficult time getting into the book because the details kept the character so distant.