Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

48 reviews

raeb's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, War, Child abuse, Death of parent, Death, Dysphoria, Homophobia, Transphobia, Body horror, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Child death, Ableism, Gore, Grief, Murder, Blood, Sexism, and Sexual content

Moderate: Alcohol, Colonisation, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Classism, Excrement, Alcoholism, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Genocide

alicelalicon's review against another edition

Not for me, not right now! Will likely try again with the ebook, to better follow the worldbuilding.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia

Moderate: Sexism

ladyfie's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Say "I am Zhu Chongba" one more time, ... https://www.reshareit.com/wp-content/uploads/pulp-fiction.gif

also really didn't need that

fisting

scene, thanks a lot

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Medical trauma, and Violence

Moderate: Murder, Racism, Death, Death of parent, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, and War

Minor: Child death and Animal death

haleyisamess's review

adventurous dark sad slow-paced

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

4.25

This book was a great read. It was interesting and I had a hard time putting it down. But it was just so damn sad. 

I ended up hating both main characters by the end of the book but I guess that’s the point. The author did a good job of making us root for them even though they both ended up doing awful things.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Blood, Death, Transphobia, War, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Dysphoria, Torture, Sexual content, Sexism, Child abuse, and Cursing

jjjreads's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Classism, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Sexual content, Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Slavery, Ableism, Child death, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Excrement, Fatphobia, Murder, Outing, Lesbophobia, Sexism, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Homophobia, and Misogyny

Moderate: Alcohol, Deadnaming, and Physical abuse

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Sexual harassment, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Medical content

miyalynn06's review

adventurous dark emotional sad 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? It's complicated

3.5

This book is Mulan if mulan was a psychopathic liar and murderer and nearly everyone else was too. The beginning set up the story perfectly and I think the plot overall was intriguing. War, betrayal and slow burn, painful romance really kept the story going. It wasn’t a bad book by any means but I literally did not like a single character (even the nice ones) and there were a few things that really pissed me off. For being a book about war, the author found a way to skirt around writing any actual fight scenes until the very end. Also with a metaphor every other sentence, the writing felt like it was trying to be beautiful and profound but ended up beating a dead horse to oblivion. Half the time I had no idea what the author was saying and the other times they were just telling you what I would’ve rather picked up on subtly. It got really frustrating and dragged in the middle part but the pacing at the end was really attention-grabbing. Zhu and Oinoing were perfect foils for each other and their characterization was immaculate - but i still didn’t like them or really feel bad for them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Sexism, Murder, and Misogyny

theworstofit's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Slavery, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Dysphoria, and War

Moderate: Transphobia and Gore

Minor: Racism

kingrosereads's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense slow-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? It's complicated

4.0

An epic political and historical fantasy retelling set in 14th century China? It’s also sapphic, genderqueer and badass? SIGN ME UP! Needless to say, I enjoyed this book, despite struggling through most of it. 

I don’t know if this book is anything like The Poppy Wars or The Song of Achilles since I haven’t read them yet, but it is similar to Game of Thrones (at least the show, again, didn’t read the books) in that there are multiple POVs across the country and none of the characters are wholly good or wholly bad. They do what they believe is necessary to obtain their fate. There’s also a lot of (in my opinion) boring political war strategy taking place. Love the drama of politics, but war strategy is a snooze fest. There’s also just a lot of “setting the scene” for the two major characters, Zhu and Ouyang, which is somewhat necessary to understand the characters but it does drag on a bit. 

This book does not hold back when it comes to the horrors of violence and war (there’s literally a whole descriptive scene where a man is burned alive). It’s also descriptive in medieval hygiene practice (or lack thereof) so if you’ve ever wondered how smelly everything was back then, this book will tell you in heavy detail. Don’t make the mistake of eating during this book as there’s bound to be something unsettling to occur. 

This book starts off following Zhu as a 9 year old girl in a village that’s been suffering through a famine that claimed the lives of her mother and many siblings, leaving just her, her father, and her brother, Zhu Chongba. From the start it’s clear Zhu is very clever and more capable than her father and brother, but they treat her as if she is nothing. One day her father takes her and her brother to this fortune teller who states that her brother’s fate is greatness whereas hers is nothingness. That is until her father is killed by bandits and Chu Chongba kills himself. This is when Zhu assumes her brother’s identity, hellbent on taking his fate since he gave it up, and she takes his place at a monastery to be trained as a monk. She masters her lessons and is even ordained early when she turns 19. We spend the book watching Zhu struggle with her identity, live in fear of people and Heaven discovering her deception, and claim her fate. 

However, the Mongol army, led by General Ouyang, burns her monastery to the ground. She ends up joining the rebels and slowly climbs the ranks, constantly running into Ouyang, a eunuch, as it seems their fates are intertwined. Ouyang is Nanren, and his family was killed by the Mongol empire, but he was spared, castrated, and enslaved but was favored by the Prince’s son, Esen, and therefore was able to rise in status and became a general. He’s mistreated since he’s a eunuch and despite being an incredible warrior and successful general, he is denied any respect. Ouyang’s journey is similar to Zhu, but he has postponed his fate for as long as he can, but once events are set in motion, he charges headfirst into his fate. 

I LOVE the very obvious similarities between Zhu and Ouyang in terms of their gender identities and sexualities. As well as their backgrounds and social standings as leaders. And I believe they’re both Nanren in this Mongol empire(?), I can’t remember. 

This book has a lot of turmoil, physically and emotionally. There are a lot of shocking things, and we see how far both Zhu and Ouyang are willing to go to succeed. They’re both selfish in their own ways and make morally questionable decisions constantly. 

This book doesn’t have romance, not really, like it’s not even a subplot. It’s more like a subplot’s subplot. The magic is minimal. Like those that have Heaven’s Mandate can produce flames and Zhu can see ghosts. That’s pretty much it for the magic. It’s also a common misconception that eunuchs don’t have their penis or testicles, most of the time it’s just the testicles that are removed, however, I learned while trying to understand some things about Ouyang that in China the practice of removing everything was common there for eunuchs. So that’s just a little fun fact to take with you. 

I liked this book, but it just took forever to get through the first half. It’s definitely a long read and slow-paced. But it’s very interesting. I feel like I’m learning so much about another culture and it’s just so unapologetically authentic. Like Parker-Chen doesn’t waste any ink trying to explain cultural concepts or anything and I really like that. And they just write so beautifully. Like it’s full on poetic. It’s also just so queer. And I really love that Zhu doesn’t know her name, because it doesn’t seem like an accident that she struggles with her gender identity as well as who she is in general. 

And (SPOILER) once she DECIDES who she is, she chooses a name for herself. 


I’m hoping the next book just has more action in it. I suspect it will be slow-paced, but now that the events at the end of the book have occurred, I’m interested in what this means for Zhu and her relationships with her loved ones and Ouyang. Very good, definitely read if you like political historical fiction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, and War

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Homophobia and Transphobia

julesxyz's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

this book had me hooked from the first page, it’s now my favorite istg this book is liquid gold to my eyes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Torture, Transphobia, Vomit, War, and Violence

offbrandclubsoda's review against another edition

adventurous challenging reflective slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, War, Violence, Transphobia, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Death of parent, Sexism, Xenophobia, War, Child abuse, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Ableism, Alcohol, Death, Blood, Colonisation, and Misogyny

Minor: Gore, Slavery, Excrement, and Animal death