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madisonmc 's review for:
She Who Became the Sun
by Shelley Parker-Chan
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
In six months’, time if someone asks me what happens in ‘She Who Became the Sun’ all I will be able to recall is that in a very light romance book, an entire hand up to the knuckles enters Ma.
The start was beautiful and expressive, in the Zhu family home you could feel the cold emptiness and the monastery was a world of its own. Even though it was slow, I was captivated. Then it just skipped years all of a sudden, the pacing was thrown out of rhythm, along with any kind of depth, detail and atmosphere.
Zhu started off as an interesting character but I didn’t enjoy her character arc. I liked Ma and her banter with Zhu early on, however like Xu Da their charters just stop developing and lost any kind of dimension that they had. Once Ma pledged herself to Zhu, after she killed the Prince of Radiance, I lost whatever care I still had for her.
Ouyang from his first introduction intrigued me and it didn’t take long for him to become the only character I really cared about, he was complex, layered and continued to add to the story. That being said… even though Ouyang ended up being the most interesting charter, half of his POV were just tedious, riddle me that.
In the end, some elements including the unique concepts and execution of the battles were ok. The charters overall were pretty lackluster. And I did not connect to the writing style, jumps in time or stale of atmosphere. This novel didn’t have to have ‘more’ things going on it just need depth, and complexity added to the right areas.
The start was beautiful and expressive, in the Zhu family home you could feel the cold emptiness and the monastery was a world of its own. Even though it was slow, I was captivated. Then it just skipped years all of a sudden, the pacing was thrown out of rhythm, along with any kind of depth, detail and atmosphere.
Zhu started off as an interesting character but I didn’t enjoy her character arc. I liked Ma and her banter with Zhu early on, however like Xu Da their charters just stop developing and lost any kind of dimension that they had. Once Ma pledged herself to Zhu, after she killed the Prince of Radiance, I lost whatever care I still had for her.
Ouyang from his first introduction intrigued me and it didn’t take long for him to become the only character I really cared about, he was complex, layered and continued to add to the story. That being said… even though Ouyang ended up being the most interesting charter, half of his POV were just tedious, riddle me that.
In the end, some elements including the unique concepts and execution of the battles were ok. The charters overall were pretty lackluster. And I did not connect to the writing style, jumps in time or stale of atmosphere. This novel didn’t have to have ‘more’ things going on it just need depth, and complexity added to the right areas.