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

While I enjoyed the characters and the ways that the author explored gender expressions and identities in this book, the plot lost me several times. I'm learning it's hard for me to pay attention to narratives that revolve around war. I feel like I would have liked this more as a television show or movie. Some aspects were hard to visualize for me. Not sure if I'll read the sequel.

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taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful 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? No

3.5

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armontheroad's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny sad 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

5.0

READ THIS BOOK! This is heavy on the supernatural, light on the magical fantasy, but an absolute gem. I loved all of these characters, even though I really should not. The historical setting was such a breath of fresh air. Adored the trans-nonbinary rep, the queer rep, the asexual rep, and the disability rep. This book had everything I could ever want, with political intrigue as the cherry on top. Cannot wait for the sequel.

Content Warnings: Eye gore, etc (see listed below)

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storieswithbee's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark inspiring sad tense

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? It's complicated

2.0

Genre: Historical, LGBT, Asian Literature

Age range: 17+

Overall: 2/5
Characters: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Writing and Setting: 5/5

Content warning: *child abuse, violence, graphic scenes, neglect, poverty

The gist of my review:

This book has a very interest concept and literally THOUSANDS of incredible reviews… but I didn’t like it...

Initially I was drawn in with the ‘Mulan meets The Song of Achilles’ and the ‘bold, queer, and lyrical reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty’. I understand where the Mulan references tie back to, however, I really can’t liken this book to SOA in the slightest. I more see this book resembling ‘Poppy Wars’.

I will give props to the LGBT representation, but the reason why I didn’t like the book was because I found it to be more of a history book, rather than this epic fantasy. I attempted this book multiple times, and eventually I forced myself to finish this book.

Characters: 3/5

The characters were all interesting in their own ways. By far, I loved Ouyang the most. This character was so fascinating from the get-go, but Zhu…! Zhu’s story started off so well. I felt empathetic for her humble and simple beginning and rooted for her for seizing the opportunity she took, but after she left the monastery, I was put off my how dull she became.

Plot: 2/5

To me there didn’t really seem like there was much of a plot. Throughout the course of my reading experience, I couldn’t really tell what the course of the novel was going to be and when I got to parts where the sequence of events became clearer, I just wasn’t amazed.

Writing and Setting: 5/5

In my opinion, the writing in this novel is what prevented me from DNF’ing. The descriptive writing was lyrical and artistically written. All the scenes and characters were described in such a visual fashion that I became absolutely addicted to.

In terms of POV, the story jumps around to different characters a lot. Although I normally like this about epic fantasy novels, I just don’t think it was done particularly well in this book. As I mentioned before, not all the characters that engaging and only some of them weren’t really distinct.

Thank you to Shelley Parker- Chan and the team at Tom Doherty Associates for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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corvicore's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

sometimes the prose was really good and sometimes it felt clumsy. the dialogue especially was a toss up, although i think it got better as the book went on. one thing that i wasn't a fan of was the cursing in the narration, although that's something i don't like in any book. there were times when i felt like the crass nature of swearing contradicted whatever was going on in the actual scene. other than that the story was good and i especially like how the author handled gender identity and dysphoria ^^

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adriatrees's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny informative 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

4.0

The first book in the series The Radiant Emperor, She Who Became the Sun focuses on the rise of Zhu Chongba, a girl who chooses her fate and fought hard for survival so that she could strive for greatness.

There are so many things I love about this book. How well Shelly Parker-Chan pulled us into this world. The characters and their development and how as a reader I was able to empathize with each one (save for Left minister Chen). The themes of fate and power and pragmatism. The history of 14th century China at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, during the Mongol Rule and the Red Turban rebellions. Slow burn and yearning… all of it was really incredible and sets up for a great series.

I’m looking forward to the next book and I’m really curious to see how Zhu and Ouyang meet their fates! 4.5 stars rounded up.

CW: death, physical violence, execution, themes of war, death of children

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sirissacgluten's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

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megafish's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

I absolutely loved how the characters are ambiguous, imprisoned in their own grey morality and overcome by fate or, sometimes, having to break through fate
This novel is historical fantasy, so while it follows historical events, it takes liberties with everything, down to changing genders or identities. I personally did not mind this because I knew it going in and I have to be honest - I don't know all that much about Mongol and Nanren history in the first place. There are a couple of plot points that at first I felt were out of place, a little "convenient" but for me it all made sense in the end. The beginning started out a little mediocre to me, but the rest of the novel is just so well paced and interesting that thinking back to it it just was the way that this had to be set up. Ultimately, it is a story about fate.
There are very low fantasy elements in this, all connected to Chinese history and believes. It is a brutal book taking place in war times, so beware of that if you want to read this.

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