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ashley_mrose530 's review for:
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
This was a great conclusion to this duology.
I really liked the critiques of gender in this series and how most of the main characters all fall somewhere in the middle of the gender spectrum and how that plays into their lives and their personalities as well as the culture and society around them. I liked how that brought the characters together simply because of their uniqueness.
I also loved getting to watch Zhu achieve everything she was reaching for. She literally wanted to change the world and she succeeded and it was glorious to watch.
I think I said this for the previous book, but it was also amazing to see what she would do in order to achieve her goal. She was not going to let anything get in her way no matter how immoral it might have been and I admired that.
I do think this book kept my attention a little bit more than the first one, but it was still fairly difficult to get through and I think that is mostly due to not being able to differentiate the character's names as well as the many sudden POV switches. The distant nature of the writing probably also contributed to that, but I think most of it was the character names for me. I'm sure it would have been much easier to differentiate them if I was reading a physical copy of the book rather than listening though.
Overall this was a good series. I loved the themes and the critiques, I just wish I felt closer to the characters in general.
I really liked the critiques of gender in this series and how most of the main characters all fall somewhere in the middle of the gender spectrum and how that plays into their lives and their personalities as well as the culture and society around them. I liked how that brought the characters together simply because of their uniqueness.
I also loved getting to watch Zhu achieve everything she was reaching for. She literally wanted to change the world and she succeeded and it was glorious to watch.
I think I said this for the previous book, but it was also amazing to see what she would do in order to achieve her goal. She was not going to let anything get in her way no matter how immoral it might have been and I admired that.
I do think this book kept my attention a little bit more than the first one, but it was still fairly difficult to get through and I think that is mostly due to not being able to differentiate the character's names as well as the many sudden POV switches. The distant nature of the writing probably also contributed to that, but I think most of it was the character names for me. I'm sure it would have been much easier to differentiate them if I was reading a physical copy of the book rather than listening though.
Overall this was a good series. I loved the themes and the critiques, I just wish I felt closer to the characters in general.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Bullying, Death, Incest, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, War, Injury/Injury detail