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lifblogs · 11 months

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Summer Reading/Writing/Arting Tag

Tagged by: @evilwriter37

Tagging: @ashleybenlove, @knowerofuselessfacts, @eddieelliotmunson, @poisonedyouth, @stand-up-and-screamo, @jayalaw, @strawbearri-frog, @thetrapperstrap, @envydean, @uh-ohspaghettio, @cascigarette, @fictionalnormalcy, @flurbejurbvondurp, @iidigestive-readerii, and @thepagemasternerd

1) Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

I just finished my first ever novelette “The Dragon Mark,” and I actually really loved being in that world. I am planning on writing a companion piece, “Zhang Jue’s Demon,” and I just want to know more too! Maybe I’ll start writing something from the character Yuxuan’s POV before he’s assassinated. He seems fun to work with. Am I planning a book? I don’t know, but I would love to stay with these characters for the summer.

2) Rec a book!

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan! It’s great political and war fantasy and with only 411 pages it still somehow seems so jam packed! It’s also queer in its own way. Basically the main character was told her fate was nothing, to truly be nothing. So what does she do? Try to steal her brother’s fate after he dies, and she takes on his name, Zhu Chongba. So publicly, one of the main characters is a man and has roles that a man would have. Another central character is a eunuch general named Ouyang, and I love him. This takes place near the end of the Great Yuan Dynasty (the rule of the Mongols) and the rise of the Ming Dynasty.

But okay if you need a summery book read Son of a Sailor by Marshall J. Moore. Pirate Captain Quint Thatch goes back to his island home of Ember Bay after the death of his father, and is trying to hide his pirate identity from everyone. This doesn’t go very well because his crew eventually shows up, and two parts of his life collide. It’s summery, it’s fun! I didn’t even think it’d be my kind of book and I adored it. The author suggests reading it near a body of water and with a cold drink nearby, and I heartily agree!

3) Rec a fic!

Holy crap, A Thousand Lives is so good. It actually understands the Force and the Jedi! It’s a Star Wars: Rebels AU where Kanan is an Inquisitor hunting down Ezra while he slowly falls in love with Hera. The implication of a thousand versions of them existing that’s put in the epigraphs is truly fantastic. I don’t usually like Star Wars fics because of how many people misunderstand the Jedi but this one was truly amazing. I can’t wait to read it again.

4) Rec music!

Fam, I’m forever listening to the album If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power by Halsey. I do want to update my music at some point though, see what my favorite artists have been putting out.

5) Share one piece of advice!

Find something you like and own it, without any shame. If others want to join then good! If people want to be negative about what you enjoy then they’re not worth your time. Your own enjoyment is precious, and when you work towards it you will find moments you like—or even, love—existing in.

#tag game #about me

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buchdrache · 8 months

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Review: She Who Became The Sun (The Radiant Emperor #1) by Shelley Parker-Chan

I might have a weakness for morally questionable characters who will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. Spice it up with a little gender fuckery and I'm so on board! After Iron Widow, I think it was predictable that I would love She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan almost as much!

In a remote village in China circa 1345, a girl outlives her entire family in a famine. Her brother was prophesied greatness, but she was prophesied nothingness. When she is the last survivor, she takes not only her brother's name, Zhu Chongba, but also his destiny for greatness. Thus begins her journey from a girl of no significance to the founder of the Ming Dynasty, which is to end the Mongol rule of the Yuan Dynasty.

In order not to starve, Zhu joins a Buddhist monastery. There she pretends to be a boy, Zhu Chongba, which results in the beginning of what I find an extremely fascinating way of approaching gender. In the course of the novel it becomes clear again and again that Zhu does not see herself as a girl or, later, as a woman. She has a woman's body, which she has to hide, but she repeatedly rejects being a woman.

To resonate in likeness to a eunuch, whose substance was neither male nor female – it was nothing less than a reminder from the world itself what she tried so hard to deny: that she wasn’t made of the same pure male substance as Zhu Chongba. She had a different substance. p. 52

She speaks of it herself as if her identity as a monk is something third that stands outside the binary of man and woman. This repeatedly opens up possibilities for her in the novel that stand outside the possibilities of other people, simply because they are anchored in the gender binary.

The eunuch already mentioned here is Ouyang, who was captured and castrated as a child by the Mongol rulers as punishment for his father's treachery. Ouyang grew up alongside Esen-Temur, the son of the Prince of Henan and one of the leading Mongol generals, for whom he leads the Mongol troops into battle against the Red Turban rebels.

I personally adore the relationship between Esen and Ouyang! They both have feelings for each other, but they can't live them out, or even admit them to themselves. They both live in an extremely masculine society that places masculinity above everything. Two men having a romantic relationship does not fit in there. In addition, as a eunuch castrated in childhood, Ouyang never developed the typical secondary male sex characteristics. He is beardless, his voice is very high-pitched and his facial features very soft. It is always emphasised that he is womanly beautiful to look at. Ouyang despises his appearance because it visibly sets him apart from the men around him.

Another major theme for the relationship between Ouyang and Esen is, on the one hand, their pining for each other, which, however, is never addressed absolutely directly, always only very cleverly just outside the explicit. On the other hand, however, it is overshadowed by the fact that it was Esen's father who had Ouyang's entire family wiped out up to the ninth generation and castrated Ouyang. Ouyang grows up with the Mongols who murdered his family, at the same time he has deep feelings for that same Mongol, this seemingly irresolvable dichotomy is just wonderful and so perfectly executed!

Ouyang and Zhu face each other as enemies for a long time, but are both somehow connected through their different social gender. Time and again, it comes up how there is a certain mutual understanding between them. Zhu has been fascinated by Ouyang ever since Ouyang came with Esen's soldiers to burn down Zhu's temple. Ouyang is Zhu's first contact with a non-binary social gender that deviates from the social norm (read: male), much like Zhu's masculinity is not a traditional masculinity.

The novel addresses many heavy topics that can be triggering at times, but focuses on the characters' inside view and their inner experience rather than what is happening around them. Some very extreme themes are addressed through a fade to black. At one point a child is murdered, but this is not explicitly written out, only addressed in retrospective. Depictions of violence are also not described in too much detail, although the novel is not without blood and violence.

Personally, I think the focus on the characters' inner view is very well done. Shelley Parker-Chan manages to find extremely apt words to convey the inner experience of the characters. Especially Zhu Chongba's extremely strong desire for something as abstract as greatness, even for her at the beginning, becomes tangible.

The silence felt fragile. Or perhaps it was she who was fragile, suspended in the pause, Every step was a test for her courage to be Zhu Chongba, and her desire for that great fate, I want it, she thought, and the force of her desire pumped her blood so strongly that it seemed a miracle that her nose didn’t bleed from it. The pressure grew, all but unbearable, crushing her fears and doubts smaller and hotter until they ignited into pure burning belief. I’m Zhu Chongba and greatness is my fate. p. 121

Zhu Chongba is a person who will do absolutely anything to achieve her goals. Neither is she too refined to humiliate herself for it, nor does she shy away from collaborating with former enemies if they offer an opportunity to get closer to her goal. And in no way does she have any inhibitions about sacrificing other people for it. And I just love everything about it!

The novel contains a sapphic relationship between Zhu and Ma as well as an "it's complicated" mlm relationship between Esen and Ouyan that can best be described as "bromance with very clear homoerotic undertones very slightly out of reach of the two of them". And anyway, just everything about this novel is queer, especially the genderrepresentation. In case it wasn't clear enough already: this is a strong recommendation! If you liked Iron Widow, you'll also love this novel (and vice versa).

Possible triggers

- Death of animals

- Blood

- Death, murder, violence against people

- War

- Mutilations

- Child Death

- Famine

- Queer hostility, partly internalised by characters

Advertising according to §6 TMG

Series information

Author: Shelley Parker-Chan

Title: She Who Became The Sun

Language: English

Cover illustration: Mel Four

Series: Volume 1

Pages: 411

Original price: £9.99

Publisher: Pan Books

Genre: Historical Fantasy

ISBN: 978-1529043402

Publication Year: 2021

#review #book review #bookblr #radiant emperor #shelley parker-chan #she who became the sun

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myxinidaes · 7 months

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been a while! been busy irl and also not in the best headstate but. A short writeup of what i've been reading/watching/doing.

Watching: Our Flag Means Death, assorted horror movies, Adventure time.

OFMD season 2 has been tons of fun so far! I've been watching with a friend at my place and we get to harass the orange cat while we watch. He loves attention so he doesn't mind (much). Can we talk abt the bell scene, though? hot damn. awakened things in me.

Horror movies watched have been: Barbarian (spooky but I think more disgusting/sad/pathetic than truly scary), Pet Sematary (halfway through, p spooky!), Jennifer's Body (not scary, very fun), IT (rewatch, still a solid time), Malignant (partway through, a fun time), Repo! (fun! very fun!), and probably more? there have been a Lot of horror movies between weekly streams with internet friends and dinner+drink+horror nights with housemates

Somehow I missed the Adventure Time craze as a teen, but i've been enjoying catching up! a fun show to watch when i dont want to think abt anything. The art style seems very uhhhhh inconsistent though? a bit disorienting

Reading: She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. Hoooly fuck. This book is driving me insane in the absolute best way. I tried reading it last year and fizzled out around the gorge scene even though I was really enjoying it. I've been on a bunch of long bus rides lately, so I picked it up again and truly losing my mind. All of the POVs are so distinct and well-done, the opening scene of the girl stealing her brother's name and the way Zhu Chongba goes on to claim her destiny as well! The gender fuckery! The woman disguised as a male monk meeting the eunuch general! The rage and horror and disgust present in Ouyang's narration, the razorwire cunning and determination of Zhu Chongba's, the complexities of Esen's court!!! And the main romance is absolutely fucking insane. A woman who wants the world at her feet and a wife just trying to survive. Screaming, crying, etc etc etc.

There have been multiple times in the book where I had to pause and lose my mind silently for a few seconds like. WOW. Dearly looking forward to finishing this book and reading He Who Drowned the World. Pictured below, one of my favorite passages.

Other things I've been reading (wip fics):

Tarnished Gold, Scum Villain fic. Absolutely engrossing fic where Shen Yuan transmigrates into Gongyi Xiao instead of Shen Qingqiu. The characterization is beyond top-notch, it's honestly aspirational. The POV is a Luo Binghe fresh from the Abyss and hellbent on causing Gongyi Xiao's complete and utter disgrace. The slow shift from plotting and scheming to a completely in-character Binghe obsession to (eventually) romance? Delightful. So crunchy to read.

Tasting the Outer Road: the Outlaw's Guide to Good Gunsmoke Eating, Trigun Maximum fic. I'm obsessed with everything this author puts out tbh, but a post-Trimax canon fic featuring Knives as a food reviewer and examining consumption, the twins' place in the world, and the harm wrought by Knives is everything I've ever wanted.

Welcome! Everything is Fine. IDW Transformers fic. A Good Place x Transformers mashup... kind of. It's fun! It'll make you laugh! It's got Starscream/Minimus aka the transformers ship of all time!

Listening to: So much. It's been a lot of Hozier lately (concert is less than two weeks away!!), but there was a man at the farmer's market this week singing the Decemberists and that reminded me how much I love them so. shrugs. let's just say i've been rolling around in indie albums.

Working on: Classwork. VW bangfic. I've been busy and I'm very much at the stage in the fic where I'm hating everything I write. But that's fine, the important thing is that it gets written (I say as I contemplate my wip which hasn't had meaningful progress being added for a While now i am so very stuck). My arm's been positively fucked these past few weeks, so I haven't had the opportunity to draw much. Hopefully eventually! I want to do gift art for VWBB friends still, but I'm running out of time.

I've applied to be an officer at a club, curious to see if I get the position. Fingers crossed, I guess? I haven't done IRL leadership stuff in a while, it would be nice to get back into it.

I've been journaling a lot lately, giving it another go after it just made me spiral hard during the early pandemic era. Not sure if it's been helping, but it's definitely better than losing my mind in public on social media? Baby steps.

Final note, very important: Please appreciate the orange cat being harassed.

#asterposting #general apologies to anyone trying to contact me lately i've been going Through It a bit #and also trying very hard to break my socmed addiction haha #been running mostly off of queue for a while now

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spacesbetweenthewords · 2 years

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It Was Radiance

Zhu Chongba, the son of a family in an impoverished village, is foretold in a prophecy to achieve greatness. However, after a bandit attack leaves the village devastated and most of the family dead, he dies of heartbreak. His sister then assumes his identity to go study at a Buddhist monastery, and begins plotting her own survival and her own path to greatness.

This was a delight to read during Pride month. Not only did the themes gender identity and sexuality elevate the engaging plot, but the characters were really good. The dialogue felt so natural that I could hear each character's distinct voice. The pacing was fantastic. I enjoyed Shelley Parker-Chan's ability to deliver on excellent scenes without weighing them down with dense, needless extra bits that can often grind a reader's enjoyment down to a halt. Each scene is important and meaningful and how this story flows just kept me hooked from beginning to end.

While I enjoyed all the characters, if I talked about each of them this review would be far too long. So, I'm going to highlight the main two.

Zhu

"Her brother's face swam before her eyes, kingly with entitlement. Useless girl. Some new hardness inside her answered. I'll be better at being you than you ever were."

The journey you take to finally meet Zhu is packed with so much raw emotion that I'm not quite sure how to describe it. The lengths Zhu will go to avoid her nothing fate and achieve the greatness her brother discarded at the beginning of the book is what kept me engaged throughout the entire novel. The choices Zhu makes begins justifiably enough. Prefect Fang was an ass. However, as Zhu inches closer towards the fate she desires, her choices become colder. The sacrifices she makes to achieve greatness are many, and when we finally meet Zhu and hear her name for the first time, you can't help but demand the rest of her story.

Ouyang

“The residence’s doors banged and slammed as if by angry ghosts, and Ouyang felt his ancestors’ eyes upon him as he ate with the son of his family’s murderer, the person he held dearest in all the world.”

I simply do not have any words for this character. At first, I was surprised when I realized whole chapters were dedicated to his point of view. The sense I got from reading the summary was that this was Zhu's tale. But Ouyang is an equally gripping character. His desire to avenge his family, but also want Esen is a constant emotional struggle. The pain Ouyang carries for a love he can never have, for the shame he must live with, and for a fate he knows he must meet drives all his chapters to a heartbreaking conclusion. I need to know what happens next.

To conclude, She Who Became the Sun is full of vibrant characters that leap off the page and suck you into this fantasy. The tale Parker-Chan weaves is an unforgettable one, and I cannot wait for the sequel.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

#book reivew #booklr #she who became the sun #fantasy #fantasy books #bookish

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protectresses · 2 years

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helloooo! 1, 23, 39, 71, and 79!

a book that is close to your heart:

The very first one that came to mind is Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters. I don't think anything could ever quite top it for me... it's beautiful, evocative, and was one of the first lesbian/wlw books I ever got to read! When I think of it, I'm filled with joy and love. The second I thought of (but which is as equally as important as the first) is Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice. Anne Rice truly built many of my interests and like, idk, who I am today... I don't think I'll ever be able to think of the Vampire Chronicles series without remembering how important it was to me growing up. It also gave me an outlet for my feelings of confusion, sadness, passion, curiosity... nothing compares!

a book that is currently on your TBR

Confessions of a Mask, by Yukio Mishima. It's a tale about a young man coming of age in wartime Japan as he grapples with the fact that he's gay. It's heavily based off the author's own life, and I've heard that, while it obviously deals with some extremely dark, heavy subject matter, it's also extraordinary. It was first published in 1949, which I think will give me a deepened understanding of what life was like then for those in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as an insight into what that was like specifically in Japan.

a book featuring your favourite character:

Oh, this is hard! Probably Brideshead Revisited, by Eveyln Waugh; Sebastian will always be one of the formative characters I still love. Another is the fantastic She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan. There's just no one like Zhu Chongba, or Ouyang!!!

your favourite LGBTQ+ fiction:

Since many I listed above overlap with LGBTQ+ fiction, I'll name some other favorites here! The Perks of Loving a Wallflower, by Erica Ridley, one of the sweetest, best historical romcoms I've ever read (and I hate romcoms...). Last Night at the Telegraph Club, by Malinda Lo. Gorgeous, emotionally devastating, and such a unique piece of historical fiction. Last, but not least, The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh. Dark, a little disgusting, and lots of fun, with a gay male protagonist that I still think of from time to time.

a book that reminds you of your favorite song:

This one's hard, because I have so many favorite songs (and books, obviously...). My Dearest Darkest, by Kayla Cottingham, always reminds me of Dove Cameron's Boyfriend!

#thank you so much :)#sorry i went on and on and on....that's me tho #ask

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aroaessidhe · 3 years

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She Who Became The Sun character descriptions

for fanart! my full book character description database in linked in my pinned post

please note this is mostly in the form of copypasted paragraphs so may contain spoilers!

Zhu

"wide forehead and none of the roundness that makes children adorable, she had the mandibular look of a brown locust" "She took off her skirt and put on Chongba’s knee-length robe and trousers; untied her hair buns so her hair fell loose like a boy’s; and finally took the amulet from his throat and fastened it around her own" [wooden Buddhist amulet around his neck, glows gold in candlelight]

monk robes: their trousers and undershirts, then peasant-style short inner robes, then over them the wide-sleeved gray monastic robes,

She was smaller than the boys, but the enveloping robes made her otherwise identical. She touched her newly shaved head. Her hair was too short to even have a nap; it was as unfriendly to her fingers as a scrubbing brush.

later: She was wearing only her short inner robe and trousers, and now the Abbot draped the seven-panel robe over her shoulders. It was heavier than the novice robes

triangular silhouette

grid of 12 ordination scars on head

The black scholar-style hat she had worn for the wedding matched Chen’s perfectly, so that together they resembled a classic image of master and disciple.

She was wearing her usual combination of armor over old gray robes,

Xu Da

An older boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, to Zhu’s starved eyes he seemed outlandishly robust: almost too tall and healthy to be real. His features were as harmonious as if they had been placed there by a sympathetic deity, rather than simply thrown down in a jumble from Heaven like everyone else

Already twenty-one, he had matured into a strapping young man whose shaved head only highlighted the clean planes of his face. His ordination last autumn was still recent enough that Zhu found it odd to see him in a fully ordained monk’s seven-panel robe instead of the simpler novice robes, his scalp marked with ordination scars

His cheekbones stood out more sharply, and there was a new shadow in his eyes. His grown-out hair puffed around his head like the fur of a Tibetan temple dog. Out of his gray robes, which were the only clothes Zhu had ever seen him in, he seemed like a different person.

Under the downwards slope of his eyebrows, his right eyelid creased a little more than the left. His hair, in the awkward stage between shaved and long enough to tie up, gave him a disreputable look

Esen

The warm spring wind swept his loosened hair to the side like a flag

His deep outdoors tan concealed his naturally ruddy, fair-skinned steppe complexion, but his chest, visible through the gap in his robe, gleamed ivory in the firelight.

Tall and muscular, with a neat well-shaped mouth under his beard, he was so perfect an example of a Mongol warrior that he resembled the hagiographic portraits of the great khans even more than the real men themselves had.

Esen emerged from his ger in his ceremonial armor. His cape was silver fur, which flattered his browned skin. His beard had been trimmed so the column of his throat stood clear and smooth.

jade beads in his hair clicked

Esen’s familiar face, lined unfamiliarly with the pain he himself had put there. He saw the smoothness where the beard of Esen’s upper lip failed to meet his beard below, his strong neck with its fluttering heartbeat. The generous and well-shaped lips.

Esen, Ouyang and Wang-

The Prince of Henan swept across the courtyard and up the steps of the Great Shrine Hall. The lush fur of his cape rippled and flexed like a live animal. A plume of white horsehair bucked at his helmet. He was trailed by three radiant youths. Bareheaded, their alien braids tossed in the wind. Two wore armor, and the third a gown of such gloriously shimmering magnolia purple that Zhu’s first thought was that it was made of butterfly wings. “That must be the Prince’s heir, Lord Esen,” Xu Da said, of the taller armored figure. “So the one in purple is Lord Wang, the younger son.

Ouyang

[his] face, as bright and delicate as a polished abalone shell, brought to life every description of beauty that Zhu had ever read in poetry. And yet—even as Zhu saw beauty, she felt the lack of something the eye wanted. There was no femininity in that lovely face at all. Instead there was only the hard, haughty superiority that was somehow unmistakably that of a young man.

Ouyang had a vain streak when it came to armor: the mirror plates he favored were uniquely recognizable, a bold declaration of his status as a feared general of the Yuan.

He had been a youth then, probably younger than Zhu was now. Those years should have turned a youth into a man, but now Zhu had the impression of seeing an echo made flesh: someone as slight and beautiful as he had been all that time ago. Only his girl’s face had lost its pure loveliness to become something more unsettling: a sharp, eerie beauty held in as high a tension as the finest tempered steel. Instead of a normal soldier’s leather armor, the general wore metal. His circular chest plate was a darkly glimmering mirror. On each side of his head his hair was braided into the thin loops of a Mongol warrior. As he came closer Zhu saw he was actually of Nanren blood.

"She saw him in silhouette: black hair and black armor against a night sky. Behind him were the dark shapes of his ghosts, and behind them: the stars."

Lord Wang

hands tucked fastidiously into his sleeves. A clot of stillness amidst the chaos, watching. As was his habit, the other had set himself apart: his fussy silk dress was as vivid as a persimmon on a snowy branch. Instead of Mongol braids, he wore a topknot. His only concession to proper Mongol fashions was a sable cloak, and perhaps even that was only a concession to the cold. As Ouyang and Esen dismounted and entered the courtyard, the Prince of Henan’s second son gave his brother one of his slow, catlike smiles. Blood ran strange in the half-breeds. Despite his narrow Mongol eyes, Lord Wang Baoxiang had the slender face and long nose of the vanished aristocrats of Khinsai, the southern city once called imperial Lin’an

smooth golden tone of her skin was only more luminous in contrast to a small dark mole high on her forehead. Her hair fell as straight and shining as black clouds. Perhaps her looks missed the Nanren standards of classic beauty, but in her face there was such a depth of raw and innocent emotion that Zhu’s eye was drawn as if to the scene of an accident

her hair fell in two shining sheets around her face. Through it Zhu glimpsed her high nomad cheekbones, and the floating eyebrows signifying future happiness that every mother wanted their daughters to have

perfect willow-leaf eyes

it was true, though, that male clothing did nothing to hide her feminine shape. With her sturdy thighs and rounded hips, nobody was ever going to compose a poem comparing her to a slender willow, or a gracefully bending blade of grass

"Ma was wearing red, the color of what had been ended so that Zhu could build the new. Her gold-embroidered sleeves draped nearly to the ground. Her upswept hair, as high again as her head, was crowned with hanging silk ribbons and golden threads that swayed as she walked. In silence she made her way between the bodies prostrated on the stone. Her skirts flowed behind her like a river of blood. At the foot of the stairs, Ma knelt. She was all smoothness and softness in the pool of her madder-dyed silk—"

Ma took off her veil. Her dangling hairpin decorations chimed softly against each other as she sat next to Zhu on the bed.

----

a few minor characters also in my database!

#she who became the sun #shelley parker-chan #char desc database

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ijustkindalikebooks · 3 years

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Review: She Who Became The Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan.

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty plain, a seer shows two children their fates. For a family’s eighth-born son, there’s greatness. For the second daughter, nothing. In 1345, China lies restless under harsh Mongol rule. And when a bandit raid wipes out their home, the two children must somehow survive. Zhu Chongba despairs and gives in. But the girl resolves to overcome her destiny. So she takes her dead brother's identity and begins her journey. Can Zhu escape what’s written in the stars, as rebellion sweeps the land? Or can she claim her brother’s greatness – and rise as high as she can dream.

This book from beginning to end is a marvel. I feel like no matter how long this series is, I am emotionally invested in these characters until the very end.

Let me tell you, this book is beautifully written, if it's the descriptions of the places in which this book takes place, for example the descriptions of the gardens in one of the cities or just the plainness of rooms in which our antagonists inhabit this book is a world building masterclass. The writer really creates and builds a wonderful and also dark setting for this book and I loved taking it in.

The characters are so real and brilliant and always so well developed. The growth of Zhu Chongba through this book is brilliant and their learning about the person they are and who they are becoming is just so good to read through every moment and this goes the same for other characters in this book - particularly Ouyang as you see their plan unfold throughout and the internal battle they're having as well as the ones happening externally.

The plot is twisting and intriguing and just when I think I know what's going to happen and where this book will stop I am wrong again, I love the unpredictability and the amount of adrenaline I got from reading this book - sometimes it made it hard to read, it left me on the edge of seat too many times to count to be honest.

Just a brilliant book and so worth the hype it is getting.

(I received an ARC from Netgalley for honest review).

#she who became the sun #shelley parker chan #fiction #books #i don't know if this is ya tbh #ya #fantasy #booklr #bookblr #book review #book reviews

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