You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
19wongfo2 's review for:
He Who Drowned the World
by Shelley Parker-Chan
"She blazed with desire. She was full with it, and her faith was in herself."
She Who Became The Sun was one of my favourite books of last year and possibly of all time, so I may have screamed when I got an ARC of this. Everything I loved about SWBTS that made it so unique and powerful - the scheming and betrayals, the eloquent writing, the amazing characters - HWDTW had as well. The battle scenes and plot reveals had me gasping and stressed out of my mind, and I can't express how much I admire the way Shelley Parker-Chan writes so movingly, for lack of a better word.
Unfortunately, whilst I was reading this, the good parts were overshadowed by several elements that left me not even disappointed, just horrified, and I was unable to appreciate how masterfully the story was crafted at the time of reading.
My major issue: the plotline of having sex as a tool to gain power was used for not one, not two, but four major characters, all of whom were emphatically not attracted to the people they were having sex with. I was crawling out of my skin in horror at the very many explicit scenes that depicted this throughout the entire book, which all included narrations of how uncomfortable the characters were feeling throughout these scenes. Please look up trigger warnings before reading this book. I can understand how this could have been relevant and realistic given the setting of the story but I honestly did not need to read that many scenes. Writing Baoxiang as a straight man, and making him have sex with a man on page, every time he was narrating, was a choice.
Another slight issue I had was that the POVs felt repetitive, in particular during the first 50 percent of the book. The phrase "she(Zhu) was willing to do anything to get what she wanted" was mentioned almost as many times as Baoxiang being heterosexual and the word "blackness".
Also, I might be nitpicking here, and I don't think this was the author's intention. But the descriptions of Ouyang's appearance and gender felt like the author was invalidating his identity at times, which I felt iffy about despite understanding why the descriptions were necessary.
On one hand I adored this so much - excellently crafted, intricate, clever, heart wrenching. On the other hand my reading enjoyment was severely impacted by the aforementioned issues.
Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for providing this book for review. All opinions are my own.
---------------------
"Go into your next life. Live it, and bear its suffering. Do it again with the life after that, and the next, and with each one find it easier. Until one day, in a thousand years, the force of the universe will bring you and Esen-Temur back together to start afresh."
This hurt me deeply. I need Shelley Parker-Chan to write a modern day spinoff where Ouyang and Esen meet again, please.
She Who Became The Sun was one of my favourite books of last year and possibly of all time, so I may have screamed when I got an ARC of this. Everything I loved about SWBTS that made it so unique and powerful - the scheming and betrayals, the eloquent writing, the amazing characters - HWDTW had as well. The battle scenes and plot reveals had me gasping and stressed out of my mind, and I can't express how much I admire the way Shelley Parker-Chan writes so movingly, for lack of a better word.
Unfortunately, whilst I was reading this, the good parts were overshadowed by several elements that left me not even disappointed, just horrified, and I was unable to appreciate how masterfully the story was crafted at the time of reading.
My major issue: the plotline of having sex as a tool to gain power was used for not one, not two, but four major characters, all of whom were emphatically not attracted to the people they were having sex with. I was crawling out of my skin in horror at the very many explicit scenes that depicted this throughout the entire book, which all included narrations of how uncomfortable the characters were feeling throughout these scenes. Please look up trigger warnings before reading this book. I can understand how this could have been relevant and realistic given the setting of the story but I honestly did not need to read that many scenes. Writing Baoxiang as a straight man, and making him have sex with a man on page, every time he was narrating, was a choice.
Another slight issue I had was that the POVs felt repetitive, in particular during the first 50 percent of the book. The phrase "she(Zhu) was willing to do anything to get what she wanted" was mentioned almost as many times as Baoxiang being heterosexual and the word "blackness".
Also, I might be nitpicking here, and I don't think this was the author's intention. But the descriptions of Ouyang's appearance and gender felt like the author was invalidating his identity at times, which I felt iffy about despite understanding why the descriptions were necessary.
On one hand I adored this so much - excellently crafted, intricate, clever, heart wrenching. On the other hand my reading enjoyment was severely impacted by the aforementioned issues.
Thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for providing this book for review. All opinions are my own.
---------------------
"Go into your next life. Live it, and bear its suffering. Do it again with the life after that, and the next, and with each one find it easier. Until one day, in a thousand years, the force of the universe will bring you and Esen-Temur back together to start afresh."
This hurt me deeply. I need Shelley Parker-Chan to write a modern day spinoff where Ouyang and Esen meet again, please.