She Who Became the Sun is a fantasy novel set in 14th century Asia (what is now China and Mongolia). This book is a sweeping epic that grapples with many big themes like identity, sense of self, fate, power, gender and politics. I had really high hopes for this when I picked it up. It delivered in some areas and let me down in others.

Things in this book that were awesome:
- a deep look at gender and sexuality,
- intricate political intrigue,
- an extremely immersive time and place with a cool yet subtle magical system,
- an engrossing examination of destiny and desire, and what people will do for power
- beautiful writing that brought characters to life in very specific detail
- great multi-faceted characters - everyone is morally gray in this story!
- excellent examples of character foils in the eunuch general, Ouyang, and the main character, Zhu Chongba (shoutout to all my English lit majors!)
- LGBTQIA+ rep, specifically trans, gay and lesbian main characters

Things in the book that were not awesome:
- pacing, oh god the pacing. The first 100 pages were amazing - chock full of plot points and excitement. The middle 200 pages were…a snooze? I kept losing track of characters and places and having to go back and reread paragraphs. The last 100 pages were back to that super gripping, dramatic plot that sucked me right in and left me wanting more.
- action descriptions. The author made some choices to “yada yada over the best part” on a few separate occasions. Sometimes I appreciated this, and others I needed a better understanding of what had just happened.
- too many characters? There were a lot of familial pairs so the names got confusing for me at times. I would have appreciated a character list somewhere in this book or a family tree or something

All that said, I enjoyed this book and will be reading the sequel(s)!