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

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was good – and while I wish I could say it was really good, the last quarter let the rest of the story down for me. While the first third absolutely raced along, and the politics really started to get going in the middle, I found the end tried to be too clever. I felt too much happened off the page between perspectives to care about the sudden plots and connections. 

The story also isn't nearly as romance heavy as the hype suggested – yes, there's romance that means a lot to the characters' development, but it's not the be all and end all of the plot. Instead most of the story was a very slow building political, military fantasy with great characters. Do I wish Zhu had been the only perspective, though? Yes. I'm not the biggest fan of multiple perspectives anyway, but Ouyang interrupted the most interesting moments of Zhu's perspective and felt like he was padding the story out more than offering insight. 

Thanks to only seeing the hype and none of the marketing, I also didn't realise this was a historical retelling at all. If I hadn't looked up how to spell some of the names in the story (the joy of audiobooks) I would not have realised this was based on the founding of the Ming dynasty. Why was everyone talking about the Song of Achilles when the whole Ming dynasty exists? It makes so much more sense why this was shelved in my local bookstores as historical.

If you want a story that embraces its setting and time period, and that has some great politics you don't normally see in Western fantasy, definitely pick this up! If you want only a sapphic romance, the slower moments in the middle of this will drag for you. 
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