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

SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN is a queer reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, featuring a female monk (disguised) whose fate is intertwined with an eunuch who commands an army. It explores destiny, longing, and the weight of expectations which are often inextricable from gender, but also the adaptability of those who side-step that binary by choice, inclination, birth, or trauma. It’s subtle, nuanced, and occasionally blunt in just the right places to make sure the theme is unmistakable.

The characters are vibrant and the politics are intricate without being overwhelming. Part of what keeps that balance is that different characters will think about the same events differently, providing for natural refreshers of what's happened and what's important, but without reusing descriptions. The rotation between Zhu, Ouyang, and (eventually) Ma is occasionally broken by brief sections following secondary or minor characters. Each change in perspective brings something to the scene that a different narrator wouldn't have noticed, or, occasionally, is used to make a revelation more poignant when shown through someone who doesn't initially understand what they're seeing (there's a particular reunion which uses this to great advantage). This has discussions of power, position, sacrifice, and cost, along with who pays what prices for which power. It frequently takes note of which language is being spoken, and how the character feels about switching from one language to another, particularly but not only when Ouyang is narrating. It creates these little moments where the language spoken in the room changes the feeling of the moment and affects how the other characters react. It's a small detail, but one I really like. The approach to depicting the horrors of war is very deft, it tends to focus on the emotional impact of whatever violence or death occurred rather than gory descriptions of the event itself.

I love this and I want more. The ending is satisfying, poised on the eve of the next step for certain events. This definitely feels like phase one of a much larger story, and I'm ready for the next one.

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caseythereader's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Thanks to Tor Books for the free advance copy of this book.

- SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN is enormous in scale while also exploring deeply personal aspects of identity as the book's two warring protagonists inch closer to each other, both in battle and in understanding.
- Military strategy in books isn't really my thing, but even when some of the machinations of the plot got away from me, I was still able to follow along and keep up with Zhu and Ouyang as they plotted against each other, so don't let that scare you away. Additionally, this is billed as a fantasy retelling, but the fantastical elements are really very minimal.
- The bottom line, though, is that I've never seen a character like Zhu in fiction, and wow, was it a treat. Not only a fresh story, but a deeply necessary one that places genderqueer people firmly within the story of world history.

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