I do still recommend this read and it was a satisfying conclusion, although don’t go into it expecting a similar read to the prequel. I need a million more books set in this time and about these characters, complete with Parker-Chan's lush prose and evocative themes. Surely it requires no extended consideration,” the woman’s voice said from behind the stirring gauze curtain of the carriage. In her perspective, we witness how she uses her own body—detached from her mind—to wield other people's desires against themselves. I read She who became the sun, last year and I was highly looking forward for the next one that comes out later this year.

My husband’s reputation may precede him, but a weak man, well managed, is a woman’s greatest strength. Two winged helmets in the Nanren style, two sets of lamellar armor with the dark leather taking in the sun and the metal lion’s-head bosses on their shoulders sending it flashing back like mirror signals.

I would rather be received face-to-face by my equal than by his honorable wife speaking from behind a curtain of propriety. I cried, I laughed, I wanted these characters to pay for all the awful things they’d done, I desperately yearned for them all to have happily ever afters, and I was always always so impressed and touched by the themes of self-acceptance and fate and how they were woven into the story.

My theory for all of this was that I found Esen and Ouyang the most compelling part of the first book so, without Esen, what am I left with? Baoxiang's pain spills out of him and drowns the world in its darkness, it is a poisoning pain with a bitter touch. In terms of violence, I think of both She Who Became the Sun and He Who Drowned the World as roughly equivalent to the Asian historical dramas on Netflix: you'll see some splatter during fight scenes, but rarely full-on gore.He believes, like Ouyang believes, like Zhu believes, that what he endures now will be worth it later.

I didn’t love it quite to the extent that I did the first book, for reasons which I might briefly theorise on, but I still enjoyed reading it. i'm gonna miss this deranged cast but i'm also relieved to be free of them (and to imagine them being free too somehow).There are few things I hate more than seeing how the author is moving the threads to give us a dramatic twist instead of a more fitting but slightly less emotional one, but I’m aware other readers would actually appreciate that. I would recommend this duology to someone who is used to Western fantasy and wants to change scenery, likes when books start very slow-paced and character-driven and get more and more complex the more you read and appreciates having some very dramatic scenes. I felt everything the author wanted to do was already done; the world had been presented and the characters had already stopped being shocking-only a bit frustrating because of how predictable they were. Thank you Pan Macmillan and Tor Publishing Group for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. We know as well as she does that 'desire is the cause of all suffering,' and that 'the greater the desire, the greater the suffering, and now she desired greatness itself,' but how much is too much for Zhu to bear?