A review by chanreads_
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

3.0

I wanted to like it more but the formal, distanced writing style made that kind of difficult. I also found it frustrating in part 2 trying to keep track of who is who, and giving up. It feels like some of the deception in part 3 at the end would have been more meaningful if I had done a better job of keeping track of all the names, but nooope. 

The Esen/Ouyang ending was a big *oooof* and I felt pretty bad for Wang (Esen's bro), given how everyone expected him to betray them, and he did not (directly anyway).

For Zhu's story, I liked how she spoke as a monk later on, but it was pretty hard to imagine that being the same character as the girl from the start, which I suppose is the point. There was just a lot of suspension of disbelief over army commanders giving her a battalion of her own just because she showed up, or even allowing a monk to get married??

I'm just glad Xu Da didn't die 😂 I was bracing myself for his death the whole time lol. Maybe he will in the direct sequel 🥴