She Who Became the Sun

This is a historical fantasy novel by Shelley Parker-Chan, about a girl who assumes her dead brother’s identity and attempts to also take his fate of greatness. I will say that this book was pretty entertaining and had some good ideas. However, there were definitely some things that took away from the overall effect the author was going for. 

I just couldn’t ignore some of the plot holes in this book. In the beginning, the main character was a child living through a famine. As a girl, she had no hope for her future, and her brother and father made sure of that. Basically, when her brother was a baby, the dad took him to the monastery and prayed that if he became healthy, he would bring his son back to become a monk. The monks gave him a (jade I think?) necklace to remind him of the promise. So when her brother died from starvation, she takes the jade necklace and entered the monastery. I found it unbelievable that the father didn’t send the son away as soon as the famine got bad. I mean, there was an opportunity for the family heir to escape death, so why didn’t he take it? This plot hole completely destroyed my immersion, because there is no way the daughter should have been able to survive in the first place. 

At the monastery, this problem only got worse. Zhu, the girl who took her brother’s name, was the only biological woman in the entire place, and she had to hide that fact. I think that would be impossible, especially through her teen years, because how would you even deal with periods secretly? The bathrooms are public! I’m going to assume because it’s a monastery, there would be numerous situations where guys are running around either shirtless or naked, so somebody would have to start questioning why Zhu is so private.

When a monk (sort-of) eventually discovered her secret, she framed him as being an alcoholic, but when she was discovered by the head monk guy for doing so, she wasn’t even punished. Instead, the monk spun the situation as (not a real quote) “whoa, some of these monk guys really gotta chill, i mean u did what you had to survive, and hey, manipulative thinking is good cuz it will get u far in life, so keep at it i will even mentor u haha broski”.  No matter how chill a monk is, I will never believe that he would say framing someone to save yourself is a mark of virtue. That goes against every moral code ever written anywhere.

Other than plot holes, the prose was also a bit difficult to get through. It was more dense than it needed to be, and I could really feel that during the war scenes. Any time fighting or strategizing was happening, it was hard to follow the plot. Dense literature has it’s time and place, but for a book that is so fantastically titled She Who Became the Sun, the book could use being lighter with the prose. 

I will say that the exploration of gender constructs was the most interesting and well-developed part of this book. With Zhu and Ouyang acting as foils, the author shows how much societal roles, attire, and behavior determines the gender of a person. Zhu is biologically female, but by assuming her brother’s identity, basically became a man. She dresses male, talks male, and performs her role in society like a male, so she effectively is one. This idea was pretty fascinating historical commentary, and I was definitely entertained. 

But then the ending. It literally came out of nowhere. I was reading the last couple pages, and the first bomb the author throws at us is that Zhu kills a child. But there is no time for us to question her empathy; Zhu completes the ceremony to become the emperor, and then THE BOOK ENDS. I was flipping pages like crazy trying to find out if there was a whole chapter missing or something. The ending was a terrible last impression. 

This book gets a 6/10 from me. Definitely some good ideas in there, just needs more asphalt in those plot holes and better narrative flow.