She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

The ruminations on the nature of gender and societal roles are elegant and poignant. They circle each other less as enemies than as counterweights to each others' inexorable fates. Both face impossibly tragic lives and loves. Both main characters, Zhu and Ouyang the eunuch general, are outsiders, outcasts with huge secrets to hide.

A historical adventure with light touches of fantasy, a heroic tale of the most unlikely hero, a history of clashing armies and personalities in which all sides are equally brave and equally villainous, this novel was so good my only complaint is that now that I'm done, I feel at a loss. well, her fortune urges her to rise ever higher at ever greater risk in the war-torn world of Yuan during the reign of the Mongol emperors. The new Zhu, passing herself as a boy, rises from the lowest of peasant beginnings to become a monk, and then. Mulan meets The Song of Achilles an accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China.Īnother wonderful book I found thanks to the reviews of Rebecca Roanhorse, who has never yet steered me wrong! She Who Became the Sun tells the story of Zhu Chongba (early SPOILER: or rather, the story of his younger sister, who assumes his identity after his death).

There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.Īfter her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu uses the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories.

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan