Sherry's Reviews > She Who Became the Sun

2.5…barely. This is going to be a bit ranty so if you loved this book, you might want to take a pass on this review but this book made me cranky and the review is going to reflect that.

This started off strong. The first chapter of the book was so well written. A young girl in the horrible circumstances of extreme poverty and starvation gets the very bright idea to take her brother’s place and fate in a Buddhist monastery, and claim them for her own. Utterly believable plot and initially, sympathetic character whose success I felt invested in. It was off to a good start and if asked it would have begun as a solid four star read. Then she ends up with the rebel army and it dropped. The connection to the character had diminished and there was no narrative provided to show how the character became someone who seemed completely different from the one in the monastery. She felt like an entirely different character and the narrative was structured in such a way as to keep her distant and a little unknowable. What happened to create this change? It’s not considered important enough to show the reader. As the story progresses this not showing continues as there is less and less narrative to show what happens. So much happens behind the scenes and is told after the fact, my least favourite writing device. Was this way of writing used to surprise the reader? Was it just lack of page count? Or was it an inexperienced writer not recognizing the value of showing the story? In any case the story became hard to read at that point and I was constantly considering just not finishing. Zhu never became a fully fleshed out character, nor did any of the others. The women were all portrayed with a curious antipathy, having characteristics of shrewishness and general awfulness. A curious thing considering the inclusive nature that is supposedly at the heart of the book.
Battle scenes were almost non-existent. There were battles, but again, not delved into with any degree that would have given the reader a mental picture of the action taking place, except after it had all unfolded. This left a layer of character development that should and could have been better utilized to give the characters some depth other than the one note of ‘I’m different from everybody else gender wise so I’m angsty and bitter and can justify all my shitty actions in that narrow lens’. This made the characters repetitious, boring and utterly dislikable the more the book progressed. It became eye roll worthy. I usually do not finish a book that makes my eyes roll but I was halfway finished and thought I’d give it one more chapter. It got moderately interesting at that point and became a grudging three stars and though the action was still taking place more off the page the plot did manage to hold my interest. But in the end, there was too much action off page, to the point that the suspension of disbelief, already pushed to the limit ( how can a Buddhist monk’s main tenet for herself be to want anything? It’s literally the most important tenet of Buddhism to not attach to anything. How is this not a huge plot hole for the story?) anyways, it devolves further to the main characters doing things that make it impossible to like or respect them.

To sum up, the reading experience was uneven. The pacing and characters frustrating and weak. Obvious plot holes and things that just wouldn’t have happened which spoiled the tone and setting of the book and took me out of the story again and again and made me feel downright cranky. This book was nothing like Mulan or The Song of Achilles except in the barest way, involving a girl taking the place of a boy and people of the same sex caring for each other. I am getting very tired of hyped up books being compared to beautiful works of art that are not worthy of the comparison. One blurb said it was “Magnificent in every way” Did we read the same book? Now perhaps, if there was a doubled page count where the story could be shown rather than explained after the fact and there was more development of character beyond the issue of their feelings about their gender and who they were attracted too this could be a story worthy of all the hype and praise it’s receiving. With the next book in the proposed duology, considering the strength of the writing in the first chapter of this one, if the weaknesses are addressed, I may pick it up but if not, this book is going in the unhaul pile.