Book Review #2 (and #3) of 2025 - “She Who Became The Sun” and “He Who Drowned The World”
This book series (or duo) was recommended to me by Meredith Halestrong, a beautiful person I was able to befriend because my college friend Jordan made the smart choice to date and marry her. I’m always in awe of how positive and energetic Meredith is, to the point where my cynical self has to retreat because I would never want to dampen her mood. And she’s a nurse who has to deal with high-stress situations everyday so I’m even more in awe of how she manages to have such an upbeat attitude. Which is why I found this book recommendation kind of surprising given the story and themes. But it gave me a lot to think about which I appreciated.
There are a lot of points I feel like I need to make before talking about this book duo. First of all, Mulan is my favorite Disney movie so reading a historical fiction novel that had Mulan undertones was very exciting to me. Secondly, I do not believe in fate or destiny. I think life is a series of choices we make every day and those choices create our path. It isn’t anyone’s destiny to do anything unless they decide for themselves and make conscious choices to reach their desired outcome. With all that in mind, I never had a book series that made me really think about this belief and strengthen it to the point where I’ve outlined exactly what I think of the topic.
The book centers on a peasant girl raised by her father and brother (Zhu Chongba) in China in the 1340s during Mongol rule. Her father takes both his children to a psychic who tells him that his son will achieve greatness and the daughter will be nothing. Great stuff you want to hear as a child. He takes this to heart and does everything to ensure the brother is well taken care of and ignores the daughter. Then, when a group of bandits kills her father and her brother dies because he can’t take care of himself, the girl takes her brother’s name and joins a monastery. From there, she decides to take on her brother’s destiny of greatness and become the new Emperor of China. We meet a lot of other characters along the way including a eunuch who has his own revenge destiny, a brother who feels cursed because he doesn’t live up to the masculine expectations his family puts on him, and a courtesan who finds a way to support any man she believes will become Emperor.
The reason I stated my stance on fate is because this duology talks about it A LOT. That is Zhu’s driving factor behind all her actions. At first, her imposter syndrome is alive and well because she is afraid that someone is going to find out who she is and take away her life in the monastery. Then she worries that the higher powers will punish her for taking her brother’s name. But once she realizes that nothing is going to happen because she is smart and capable, she decides to take her brother’s fate as well. This is where I start to diverge from being a fan of Zhu because I see this as a perfect opportunity for her to abandon her family baggage and do what makes her happy. Even as she rises in the ranks in the rebel army, I feel at any point, she can stay where she is and live the rest of her life with this new sense of identity. But her ambitions grow the more successful she becomes and then decides her destiny is to become Emperor. Not only that, but she’ll do whatever it takes. By the end of the first book, she has committed some truly atrocious acts to ensure her place as a top contender for the throne.
The second book truly looks at the consequences of the paths all the characters have chosen for themselves, all thinking this is what they’re destined to do. Some meet their end, others manage to get what they want but they are left with fragments of who they used to be. And they have to decide if they want to keep pushing toward their goals with broken spirits, relationships, and even bodies. This book was truly a hard read at times mainly because you understand what is motivating each character, no matter how terrible they are. They are products of their upbringing and this cemented idea that fate is entangled in their lives and it’s inescapable. Most of them don’t even question if there’s another choice until it’s too late. As someone who believes there’s always another choice, I just wanted to shake all the characters to stop and choose a different path. And there are a lot of inner monologues that explore that but it still feels like these characters are frozen in what they’ve been taught and told time and time again. When I finally got to the end, I was mainly exhausted and wanted it to be over. Someone was sitting on the throne and decided to change things for the better but their decision stood on top of countless bodies. It felt like a situation where the end doesn’t justify the means at all. It had a feeling of Game of Thrones where you just felt like you took this long, gruesome journey with so many characters and thought, “This is it??”
I do have to mention that I love the idea of a queer retelling of this era and gender politics played an interesting role in this whole story. And for the main character, that part of her identity was a key factor behind her choices which made me more sympathetic towards her, until she decided to go on a war path (no pun intended).
Overall, I did find this book unique, fascinating, and tragically beautiful. I cared about all the characters no matter how terrible they were. And I had an unexpected sense of sadness that came with knowing that not everyone can win when you’re all vying for the ultimate greatness. I still prefer the Disney Mulan version.
