She Who Became the Sun

Title: She Who Became the Sun
Author: Shelley Parker-Chan
Publisher: Mantle

Year: July 2021
Pages: 411

Series: The Radiant Emperor #1
Genre: Fantasy
Reading Time: 22 - 30 August
Binding: Illumicrate Hardback

Goodreads

Stars:
★★★★☆

Blurb:

 In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, a seer show two children their fates. For the boy, greatness. For the girl, nothingness.

 In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is only found in stories. The Zhu family is mystified as to how Zhu Chongba, their eighth-born son, will achieve his lofty future. But for a daughter, no matter how clever or capable, an early death would be no surprise.

 Yet when a bandit attack orphans the two children, it's Zhu Chongba who dies. Desperate to survive, his sister steals his identity to enter a monastery. There, disguised as a male novice, Zhu learns she can be ruthless to avoid her fate. But when her sanctuary is destroyed, Zhu is cast back into the war-torn world. To change her ending, there's only one thing she can do: claim her brother's great destiny as her own.

Review:

 Just to clarify, I know absolutely nothing about the history of China, so comparison to real historical events isn't going to happen with me. My interest in the subject has increased and I may very well go in to some research but my expertise is so low it's probably in my best interests to leave that to others! I also don't read blurbs of my book boxes, just join the readalongs so any links I could have made the chance to make in advance weren't given a chance. Helpfully the author has added a historical note at the beginning of the book for the setting which is always a fabulous idea.

 Despite what the blurb may have you believe, we experience more than just Zhu Chongba's POV in this book. They come in later and I don't want to spoil too much though. Our two main characters are Zhu Chongba who, as described in the blurb, was born female and identifies as male. An extremely dangerous situation in this time period. Our other main character is a eunuch with an appearance that could have you believing he is either gender. A very interesting duo. The determination behind each character is astounding and their backstories superb. Make no doubt, these are both dark characters and towards the end I begin questioning who I'm really rooting for.

 1435 China is of course a real world setting with issues such as famine, war and superstition. A small fantasy element is brought in by the presence of the ghosts seen by Zhu which I didn't expect whatsoever. I'm not sure we really got an explanation as to why they showed up or if I completely missed it. It did however add a new mysterious element to the religious side of things.

 In the Illumicrate discord I saw someone mention how slow they thought it was after 100 pages and I'm not sure they were reading the same book I was! We are with Zhu for the beginning as they meet the seer and then to the monastery. This was a few chapters and I felt we absolutely rocketed through this as a backstory. It gets us interested in Zhu and understanding how such thinking and ambition came about. We had continuous action throughout the book and I only had a feeling of the book being slightly slow in the middle as we began to be introduced to more characters. It was a brief section really halted by some long chapters but the quality of content in those chapters remained high.

 At this point I should highlight that this is a fantasy book and not a book I would classify as young adult fantasy. We see Zhu through a range of years ageing but the content of this book reminded me slightly of The Poppy War series in that it does not hide away from violence. It's not on the same level but doesn't shy away from a few quite brutal deaths and other acts of violence. There's also a short scene of sexual content which I was surprised by as it seemingly came out of nowhere. So you've been slightly warned.

 So why did this book not get the full five star rating? Questions. I have so many questions. Zhu's name? The ghosts? More I'm sure I'll find out in the next book. I also had a little trouble keeping track of some characters and completely missed the death of one side character, probably where things slowed down or too many names came in to play.

 All in all. . . I shall be keeping an eye out for this series as it continues and would recommend for fans of The Poppy War that are happy seeing a little less fantastical elements.