Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

75 reviews

vaguely_pink's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Murder, Child death, Death, Death of parent, War, and Violence

Moderate: Child abuse, Dysphoria, Grief, Misogyny, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual content, Homophobia, Colonisation, and Blood

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Animal death, Slavery, Suicide, Alcohol, Cursing, Pandemic/Epidemic, Abandonment, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Eating disorder, Infidelity, and Body horror

sophiesmallhands's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad medium-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexism, War, and Violence

Moderate: Classism, Genocide, Grief, Body horror, Colonisation, Gore, Blood, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Ableism, Child death, Slavery, and Sexual content

Minor: Alcohol, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, and Animal death

nikenacs's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Blood, Sexual content, Sexism, Xenophobia, Violence, Death of parent, and Death

Moderate: Colonisation, Child death, and Dysphoria

Minor: Alcohol

biobeetle's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Violence, Death, Child death, and War

Moderate: Colonisation, Dysphoria, and Physical abuse

tinyjude's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced

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

5.0

Absolutely fell in love with these flawed characters and their journeys, how they fight to challenge or grasp their fates and how their perceptions of themselves as beings change as the story unravels. 

It has several lgbtqia+ representation within the story and oh god, the body dysphoria truly hit the sensitive spot for me (/pos) with Zhu, so beware if that is a major trigger warning. 

I couldn't get enough of Ma and Zhu's relationship despite seeing how that journey towards greatness was so toxic and harmful. Same with the other protagonist of the novel, Ouyang, so complex, with such a heart-wrecking story. I felt his shame, humiliation, resentment, desire, sense of duty, self-loathing, so strongly... I felt so much for these characters, enjoyed the world building, politics, war strategies, complicated relationships, mentions of faith, heaven, kinship or 'likeness' as they reference a lot, with characters mirroring each other in many different levels. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Colonisation, Death, Dysphoria, War, Xenophobia, Misogyny, Death of parent, and Sexism

o_mcg318's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-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

Minor: Blood, Body horror, War, Dysphoria, Murder, Colonisation, and Death

lizziaha's review against another edition

• Strong character development? Yes

4.25

I really do love books that explore the complexity of human emotions. This book picks at the hangnail of your soul and then pulls. It blurs the line between who you were and who you are and who you will become. It features ghosts, monks, fate, revenge, pining, and there’s gender fuckery afoot; what more could you ask for? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Ableism, Death, War, Violence, Murder, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexism

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Death of parent, Child death, Classism, Religious bigotry, Child abuse, and Colonisation

Minor: Alcohol and Animal death

braveprincess11's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

5.0

I went into this book with no knowledge and no expectations - and it absolutely blew me away. To think that this is a DEBUT novel… Shelley Parker-Chan is a literary genius.

At the end of the first chapter, I still didn’t quite understand what I was in for, but by the end of Part 1, I was HOOKED. 

Their ability to write such unique and compelling characters who experience gender, desire, and ambition in such similar and yet opposing ways, all while working in the confines of an extremely patriarchal society… 

I’m desperate for the next book already

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Blood, Sexual content, Violence, Dysphoria, Misogyny, Death of parent, Child death, Body horror, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Death, and War

Moderate: Racism and Ableism

Minor: Colonisation

jessiereads98's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

2.5

This was a huge disappointment. I’ve seen this book hyped so much and it’s not even close to the best sapphic fantasy I’ve read or the best Asian inspired military fantasy I’ve read. 

The most compelling part of this story was the character of Ouyang and his relationships. That being said, I would still cut Ouyang’s story from the book entirely. I see how he works as a mirror to Zhu’s character, but him and his story aren’t necessary. This book is too long with too many POVs that are wholly unnecessary and while technically they come into contact occasionally, they really aren’t that relevant to each other. No POV adds anything to the others. The jumps between POVs are also extremely jarring at times. Overall, I found it difficult to care about any character due to a lack of consistent characterization and constant jumps. 

There’s no real payoff from the magic here. This is heavy on the military and light on the fantasy to the point where for me it drops to more magical realism than true fantasy. This was really disappointing since it had potential. However, almost every time

Zhu’s ability to see ghosts

comes up, it goes nowhere. It’s only really used once, and does very little to further plot, characterization, or themes in my opinion. I felt like I smelled the mouth-watering aroma of baking bread only to walk into the bakery and find they didn’t sell bread at all, just used the scent to attract customers. 

I can recognize the writing in this book on its own is objectively, technically very well done. However, it still reads very dry and drags for about 300-350 pages. The ending was good, but it wasn’t worth the rest of the book. This ended up feeling like an excessively elaborate and unnecessary set up for whatever is going to happen in the sequel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Ableism, War, and Transphobia

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Blood, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, and Sexism

Minor: Excrement, Vomit, Animal death, Slavery, Racism, Sexual content, Alcohol, and Colonisation

marsh_mall0w's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, War, Child abuse, Classism, Colonisation, and Misogyny

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Alcohol, Bullying, and Torture