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A review by mesal
He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Buddy read with Fiore, Nucu, and Sarah!
It was better than its prequel. He Who Drowned the World starts off strong: after a cursory but indispensable recap of past events, it drops the reader straight into the middle of a face-off against two rebel leaders and their armies. This did away with one of the major gripes I had with She Who Became the Sun: the Zhu childhood chapter, though necessary to the development of her character, took me forever to get through.
Parker-Chan's ability to create and maintain idiosyncratic characters—rarely lovable, but endlessly fascinating—carried forward into the second and final installment of their duology. Of the characters whose perspectives were presented, the three most prominent were often at odds with each other, and yet I somehow found myself rooting for all three of them to achieve their goals at different points in the narrative. Zhu's desire to realize her fate and change a world hostile to her very existence had me rooting for her even through all the questionable decisions she made. Ouyang's increasingly desperate need for revenge was rendered so well on the page that I almost forgot his pain wasn't mine.
As for Wang Baoxiang, he deserves a paragraph to himself. I've always thought him to be beautiful and gorgeous and pretty and polite and perfect and noble and lovely and loyal and kind and magnificent and nice and funny and fabulous and fantastic and friendly and smart and sweet and special and attractive and spectacular and wonderful and amazing and cute and brilliant and excellent and splendid and outstanding and intelligent and incredible and important and impressive and entertaining and cheerful and caring and truthful and talented and adorable and stupendous and remarkable and marvelous and glamorous and generous and glorious and gracious and tremendous and courteous and honest and respectful and helpful and loving and supportive and fun and wise and cool and distinguished and clever and graceful and hot and sexy and tender and gentle and unique and astounding and encouraging and trustworthy and dependable and reliable and humble and terrific and cherishing and faithful and affectionate and resourceful and wholesome and joyful and stunning and luscious.
The writing style Parker-Chan has employed in both novels of this duology is decidedly dramatic in nature, and for the most part it works. When the characters are compelling enough to generate an emotional investment in the reader, intense and sentimental sentences serve to heighten their feelings. Sometimes the repetition got to be a bit too much, though. When it's already established that Zhu has a certain ends-justify-the-means outlook on both battle strategy and personal relationships, repeating the same in words rather than in actions diminishes the impact of scenes where Zhu actually does live up to her oft-stated personality. The character arc she went through, unlike those of her counterparts, was undermined by this same tendency to show rather than tell:after several passages dedicated to how Zhu would give up anything for her fate, the reader is presented with several passages dedicated to how Zhu wonders whether it was worth giving everything up for her fate. Though her arc may make perfect sense, hingeing on Xu Da's death as a turning point to drastically change her perception of the future, its method of execution did not have the desired result—on me, at least . What worked for the point of view of a melodramatic character like Baoxiang or a wretched, miserable one like Ouyang did not translate as well, in my opinion, to Zhu's chapters.
A certain aspect of the plot also bothered me a little.General Zhang gave up a battle, his army, and a future on the throne for the sake of his son. Though by no means a reprehensible act, did no advisor whisper in his ear to try and save his son in any other manner? Did nobody dissuade him from giving everything up? Did he not so much as make an attempt to devise an alternate solution? Zhu faced a similar situation with Chen Youliang and Xu Da, and she tried her utmost to save both her brother and her future. Zhang's desire may have been less consuming than Zhu's, but I still find it difficult to believe that he made defeating him that easy. For a novel that deals with complex themes and issues deftly, I expected more complexity from the plot as well.
Still an excellent read, with a perfect ending.
It was better than its prequel. He Who Drowned the World starts off strong: after a cursory but indispensable recap of past events, it drops the reader straight into the middle of a face-off against two rebel leaders and their armies. This did away with one of the major gripes I had with She Who Became the Sun: the Zhu childhood chapter, though necessary to the development of her character, took me forever to get through.
Parker-Chan's ability to create and maintain idiosyncratic characters—rarely lovable, but endlessly fascinating—carried forward into the second and final installment of their duology. Of the characters whose perspectives were presented, the three most prominent were often at odds with each other, and yet I somehow found myself rooting for all three of them to achieve their goals at different points in the narrative. Zhu's desire to realize her fate and change a world hostile to her very existence had me rooting for her even through all the questionable decisions she made. Ouyang's increasingly desperate need for revenge was rendered so well on the page that I almost forgot his pain wasn't mine.
As for Wang Baoxiang, he deserves a paragraph to himself. I've always thought him to be beautiful and gorgeous and pretty and polite and perfect and noble and lovely and loyal and kind and magnificent and nice and funny and fabulous and fantastic and friendly and smart and sweet and special and attractive and spectacular and wonderful and amazing and cute and brilliant and excellent and splendid and outstanding and intelligent and incredible and important and impressive and entertaining and cheerful and caring and truthful and talented and adorable and stupendous and remarkable and marvelous and glamorous and generous and glorious and gracious and tremendous and courteous and honest and respectful and helpful and loving and supportive and fun and wise and cool and distinguished and clever and graceful and hot and sexy and tender and gentle and unique and astounding and encouraging and trustworthy and dependable and reliable and humble and terrific and cherishing and faithful and affectionate and resourceful and wholesome and joyful and stunning and luscious.
The writing style Parker-Chan has employed in both novels of this duology is decidedly dramatic in nature, and for the most part it works. When the characters are compelling enough to generate an emotional investment in the reader, intense and sentimental sentences serve to heighten their feelings. Sometimes the repetition got to be a bit too much, though. When it's already established that Zhu has a certain ends-justify-the-means outlook on both battle strategy and personal relationships, repeating the same in words rather than in actions diminishes the impact of scenes where Zhu actually does live up to her oft-stated personality. The character arc she went through, unlike those of her counterparts, was undermined by this same tendency to show rather than tell:
A certain aspect of the plot also bothered me a little.
Still an excellent read, with a perfect ending.