Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

58 reviews

adoto's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

You know a book is good when you marvel at how well every single aspect of it was carried out and think "I could never do this" like this gave me the same feeling that Percy Jackson did.... absolutely legendary 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Sexual content, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism, Slavery, Xenophobia, Blood, Dysphoria, and War

chrisb913's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was everything I was expecting and more.

From page one I was hooked and could not stop turning the page. I absolutely loved the darker tones in this book. I couldn't help cheering on the main characters even though I wasn't sure if they were the hero or the villain.

I also really loved the way Shelley also talked about the social construct surrounding gender not only with Zhu but also Ouyang.

I will definitely be picking up book 2 and looking into future works by this author.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, and War

Moderate: Child death and Sexual content

Minor: Animal death, Slavery, and Death of parent

k_aro's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Very very good historical fiction/fantasy. I really like the way the book handles gender, the separation of the sexes, and the mirrors that exist within that kind of space.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexual content, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and War

Moderate: Child death, Outing, and Abandonment

Minor: Ableism and Animal death

Many questions around these content warnings exist because it's a historical fiction book that pretty violently diverges from real life. Is it transphobia if he's a eunuch?

kouya's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Violence, Murder, and Dysphoria

Moderate: Child death, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Body shaming, and Death

aehc's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Superb. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, and War

throwback682's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

From the publisher:

“Mulan meets The Song of Achilles in Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun, a bold, queer, and lyrical reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty from an amazing new voice in literary fantasy.”

Phew. This book was so good and I’m ready to immediately dive into the conclusion of the Radiant Emperor duology - He Who Drowned the World. 

This book is about human suffering - due to war, patriarchy, religion, etc. It’s not an easy or lighthearted read. I liked so many of the characters in spite of them all being pretty bad people - some of the best characters are power hungry, blood thirsty, and ruthless - and it gets worse from there. 

But I’ll be damned if I wasn’t rooting for them!

This book has some very queer elements (both in terms of sexuality and gender) but very much in a way that’s framed by its setting - you won’t be able to neatly cram these characters into 21st century western boxes and labels, though you might be tempted. 

Although the bulk of the “adult” content in this book is the violence of war, there’s also one graphic sex scene, FYI. See also the content warnings. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexual content, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Vomit

Minor: Animal death, Excrement, Grief, and Outing

The sex scene involves

fisting.

A character sustains a battle injury that is significant to the plot. The injury is

an intentionally amputated limb.

There is a character who is mutilated.

He is a eunuch, and there are references throughout the book to this.

He is treated very poorly because of his

genital mutilation, which makes him viewed more as a woman than a man.

Two children die

one violently and one maybe of a broken heart?

The opening of the book takes place during a famine, and some content could be triggering to those with ED/ARFID I imagine.

A child is starving, etc.

Again, it’s a book about war, so lots of blood, swords, bombs, fire, etc etc. Drowning:

A great number of soldiers are washed away in a flood but there’s no description of any drowning.

Many people get sick due to something like food poisoning so there’s

a bunch of people having vomiting and diarrhea.

Gender stuff:

The main character is a girl who hides her identity and pretends to be a boy. She binds. She has a confusing relationship with her body. I wouldn’t exactly call it dysphoria in the way we’d use it, but I think those parts could be triggering to some in a related way.

nikenacs's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Death of parent, and War

Moderate: Child death, Colonisation, and Dysphoria

Minor: Alcohol

ulespiegel's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Xenophobia, and War

Moderate: Child death and Sexism

tinyjude's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Absolutely fell in love with these flawed characters and their journeys, how they fight to challenge or grasp their fates and how their perceptions of themselves as beings change as the story unravels. 

It has several lgbtqia+ representation within the story and oh god, the body dysphoria truly hit the sensitive spot for me (/pos) with Zhu, so beware if that is a major trigger warning. 

I couldn't get enough of Ma and Zhu's relationship despite seeing how that journey towards greatness was so toxic and harmful. Same with the other protagonist of the novel, Ouyang, so complex, with such a heart-wrecking story. I felt his shame, humiliation, resentment, desire, sense of duty, self-loathing, so strongly... I felt so much for these characters, enjoyed the world building, politics, war strategies, complicated relationships, mentions of faith, heaven, kinship or 'likeness' as they reference a lot, with characters mirroring each other in many different levels. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Slavery, Xenophobia, Death of parent, Colonisation, Dysphoria, and War

bashsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Sometimes when I hear a bunch of hype for a book, I find that it makes my expectations so high that I can be nothing but disappointed when I read it. Thankfully, She Who Became the Sun well-earned its praise. I was blown away by how immersed in the time and setting it was, as well as the carefully-considered jumps between character perspectives. All of the characters were undeniably bad people... but they were also so easy to understand and sympathize with. And don't even get me started about all the deliciously complicated gender stuff happening for Zhu and Ouyang. I Love This Book, and I can't wait to read the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Murder, Toxic friendship, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

Minor: Excrement and Vomit