Scan barcode
A review by secre
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I don't think I've ever read and enjoyed a book before where I ended disliking virtually every character. So there's a first for me, and I've got to give props to the author for managing it what I'd previously have considered as impossible. Even characters that I thought I empathised with to begin with, had me denouncing them by the end. It's a gritty novel where resilience, survival instinct and power struggles are twisted into showing the darkest elements of humanity, time and time again.
She Who Became the Sun is a sprawling narrative, and throws you off course when you switch from Part 1 which is focussed entirely on a coming of age arc for one character into the rest of the novel which spreads across a variety of characters and events. It's not a period of history that I'm particularly knowledgeable about, but I'm reliably informed that it's an alternate re-imagining of the rise of the Ming Dynasty emperor. It doesn't shy away from the widespread horrors of 1345 China, with famine sweeping the land and civil war ongoing, yet also focusses in on the individual power struggles and narratives.
It is certainly beautifully written and conveys a wonderful sense of time and place, drawing even those of us with no prior knowledge of the period and region into the events and struggles of the characters. Character development is cleverly done, with absolutely no character being 'the hero' and by the end, it's seriously debateable if you want any of them to survive let alone win. Talk about a cast of antiheroes. I did enjoy the themes of gender and the religious connotations of destiny and how we can cheat it very interesting though, and they worked well with individual character narratives, never feeling shoe horned in.
I did find the switch from the first single character arc to the rest of the novel jarring and that's probably my biggest complaint with the novel. It sets you up for one thing and it's beautifully written, truly draws you into Zhu's perspective and the challenges of taking her brother's identity and serving as a monk. Then without warning it throws you into multiple perspectives that take a long time to get going. You've invested in one thing and then thrown to the lions, particularly when the second act of the novel takes a long, meandering path through events until it finally picks up again. This switch could absolutely have been done better and the mid section of the novel needed a bit more pace to offset the huge cast of characters that were difficult to keep track of at the best of times.
But, despite that I very much enjoyed the novel and I'd be interested to see what the author manages in the future.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my free review copy of this title.
She Who Became the Sun is a sprawling narrative, and throws you off course when you switch from Part 1 which is focussed entirely on a coming of age arc for one character into the rest of the novel which spreads across a variety of characters and events. It's not a period of history that I'm particularly knowledgeable about, but I'm reliably informed that it's an alternate re-imagining of the rise of the Ming Dynasty emperor. It doesn't shy away from the widespread horrors of 1345 China, with famine sweeping the land and civil war ongoing, yet also focusses in on the individual power struggles and narratives.
It is certainly beautifully written and conveys a wonderful sense of time and place, drawing even those of us with no prior knowledge of the period and region into the events and struggles of the characters. Character development is cleverly done, with absolutely no character being 'the hero' and by the end, it's seriously debateable if you want any of them to survive let alone win. Talk about a cast of antiheroes. I did enjoy the themes of gender and the religious connotations of destiny and how we can cheat it very interesting though, and they worked well with individual character narratives, never feeling shoe horned in.
I did find the switch from the first single character arc to the rest of the novel jarring and that's probably my biggest complaint with the novel. It sets you up for one thing and it's beautifully written, truly draws you into Zhu's perspective and the challenges of taking her brother's identity and serving as a monk. Then without warning it throws you into multiple perspectives that take a long time to get going. You've invested in one thing and then thrown to the lions, particularly when the second act of the novel takes a long, meandering path through events until it finally picks up again. This switch could absolutely have been done better and the mid section of the novel needed a bit more pace to offset the huge cast of characters that were difficult to keep track of at the best of times.
But, despite that I very much enjoyed the novel and I'd be interested to see what the author manages in the future.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my free review copy of this title.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, War, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
Moderate: Child death and Death of parent