She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor, #1) in Do Better: SFF without Sexual Violence

Mar 09, 2023 Melanie Schneider rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, einzelband, fantasy, neu-2021

Ich muss noch ein bisschen über meine finale Bewertung nachdenken!

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Sep 08, 2022 Tm, pilot-in-training on the Rocinante & cake yum! rated it it was amazing

Wow….breathtaking in so many moments. The insight into gender really, really struck a chord in me. Such a beautiful, poetic grasp of it.

The were a couple of slow parts but I don’t care at all…every once in a while she just drops these sentences that are literal jewels just plunking into clear water, right in front of you, and the splash of them is absolutely delightful.

Shelley Parker-Chan you are a wonder and I’m your newest fan!

5 lizards to survive
⭐️🦎⭐️🐉⭐️🦎⭐️🐉⭐️🦎

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Dec 01, 2021 Pixie 🍜 rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dnf, netgalley, illumicrate-picks

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Dnf review to come

A huge thank you to netgalley and the publishers for an eARC in exchange of an honest review.

I was so excited to read this one! A historical novel about a girl who disguised herself as her dead brother to live another day. That’s some Mulan stuff we all grew up with so of course I was interested.

But this just did not work for me.
Maybe it’s the writing style, which is beautiful but very much detached from the characters, or perhaps the pacing, but I couldn’t get fully investe Dnf review to come

A huge thank you to netgalley and the publishers for an eARC in exchange of an honest review.

I was so excited to read this one! A historical novel about a girl who disguised herself as her dead brother to live another day. That’s some Mulan stuff we all grew up with so of course I was interested.

But this just did not work for me.
Maybe it’s the writing style, which is beautiful but very much detached from the characters, or perhaps the pacing, but I couldn’t get fully invested.

We don’t even know the main characters name until she takes on her dead brothers name. Until then she’s just the girl or she. And the beginning is kind of slow to get anywhere, though I understand that we are being given context for our main characters background. We don’t really get to understand inside her head properly. It’s this weird kind of third person past tense which both tells us bits of what she’s thinking but isn’t fully inside her head and it doesn’t quite work for me.

I did, however, start to get more and more invested as she takes her journey becoming a monk. I thought that I would get more time there but we have quite a few time jumps. Again, not great for getting to know a character. I believe this is based on a real person so this may be why, but even if that were the case, since it’s not a standalone book, I’d have liked to get to know our main character and the other monks better so I cared about them when big important plot stuff happens to everyone.

As it was, big important plot stuff happens and I was like ah whatever okay. I didn’t really care? I hadn’t been given a reason to care as I only knew like three monks by name and one of them was an asshole.

Anyway, just when I’m starting to settle into this story the point of view is changed. And it’s not like an alternating chapter by chapter pov, we’ve had about 40% of the book already, and now we are in someone else’s head-not-head.
I was entirely pulled out the story. If you’re going to introduce another character as a POV, in my opinion it has to be early. The problem is, unless you also like that character then it’s hard to want to read their point of view. I didn’t like the things this character had done up to that point and so it entirely ruined the book for me. I got bored and I just wanted the book to end.

So yes, this clearly wasn’t for me. I was excited to learn more about life in China and Chinese history which I did get, but I didn’t get characters I could engage with as I was never deeply enough in their personalities or feelings that I could get attached or get any sense of them other than as vague concepts. This was the failure for me personally. I assume that this is maybe a similar style to older Chinese writing or maybe even the ballad of mulan, and while an amazing concept, made it hard for me to care about the characters enough to enjoy the novel.

I hope this appeals to others who are a fan of this style of writing though! ...more

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