thedambookshelf's reviews
301 reviews

As many of you have seen in other reviews, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Park Chan is one of the most hyped books this year on bookish social media. I am not one to follow hype really, and it’s been a while since I’ve picked up something that everyone else was currently talking about, and guess what? I was not disappointed. 

She Who Became the Sun follows a girl destined for nothingness who takes on the role of her brother, Zhu Chongba, and spins a way to achieve heaven's favor that has been promised to her brother from the moment he entered the world. You follow Zhu in a cunning game for power, desire, and greatness. And you certainly find it, though Zhu is not the only perspective you get, you get many but the other most prominent is Ouyang. Ouyang is a eunuch general who has risen in power to serve as the right hand to one of the most powerful Mongol princes. He has been forced to serve the people who mutilated him and is in a constant battle between his fate and his desire to be loved. 

SWBTS is a very atmospheric, genuine, and deliberate read. You get to the point from the beginning to end, I never felt as if the plot was lacking nor the setting, characterization was impeccable, and everything just hit. Honestly, I’ve read another review on good reads where they stated comparing this to the song of Achilles is a disservice to SWBTS, and I could not agree more. 

This book is so rich in battle and war, not romance, the political aspects feel so real and despite this story being a reimaging of 1345 china under Mongol rule, I learned more from this than I ever did in AP WORLD. All the characters and I mean this, ALL OF THEM, are anti-heroes/morally grey characters. I found it very hard to dislike anyone, and if that’s not good character building, I don’t know what is. I don’t want to get too spoilery but in terms of romance, this book was just it for me, I’m not a big fan of sappy romances in plots like this. It isn’t realistic I feel? So, the way Shelley went about it, was perfect. Also, I just want to state, Patroclus and Achilles have nothing on my boys in this. 

Something else I really want to talk about is the way gender is structured and spoken about in this book, first off, I am genderfluid so having two lead characters that are genderqueer was a win for me. Especially the situation with Zhu, whose gender was assigned a female at birth but does not identify as a female, and yet she also doesn’t feel quite male either. She’s in limbo between the two. I feel like Shelley did an amazing job constructing such in a fluid and relatable manner, same with Ouyang and his struggles of dysphoria. I will say this story is rich with gender dysphoria which for me helped me feel better about the parts of me that make me experience the same dysphoria but for others, it may not come across that way, so be mindful about such once picking up this book. 

Despite this book just being all-around incredible, I really felt known in Shelley’s writing and there are not many books that make me feel like that, but this was one and I cannot wait for the sequel. This book was a 5-star read for me, and honestly, it would have been higher. Oh! And who wants to join my Wang Baoxiang protection club? Anyone? 

 

That is something I thought we had done two books ago when I finished carry on and though I am so happy that wasn’t the case it’s so bittersweet to come to this conclusion. 

 

Any way the wind blows was everything I needed it to be, though I will say Rainbow had me in the first half not going to lie. I sobbed during those first couple chapters between Simon and Baz, I found myself growing so frustrated with Simon and even thinking Baz deserved better. 

 

I was satisfied with how Rainbow navigated their reconciliation and the rest of their relationship. Simon had a lot of personal issues that needed to be addressed and his long-needed acceptance of Baz’s help was very refreshing especially seeing how patient and kind Baz was. 

 

Apart from them, I was glad that Simon and Baz were focused on in a unit because this gave Penelope the much-needed page time. I have always enjoyed Penelope’s character but apart from being Simon’s best friend, I felt as if she was very pushed off to the sidelines and that is why the budding relationship between her and Shepard made me so happy. They were so cute and the entire demon contract scenario was actually very entertaining to read. I was so happy she got her moment to shine. 

 

Though I believe my favorite part was Agatha. Freaking Agatha. I have never been a fan of Agatha though the fandom has adored her, and I could see their reasoning, of course, she just seemed so bland to me. Yet in this conclusion, I feel as if she was the most interesting and had the best development. Truly. The relationship between her and Niamh was a welcomed surprise, honestly, I may have squealed a little bit. 

 

I was so happy that Simon finally learned the truth about his family, and found Lady Ruth and Jaime. And aside from his family reconciliation, Baz was faced with his own family issues which I enjoyed, I always felt as if we didn’t know much about his family, the relationship between him and Daphne was so sincere and genuine I may have cried a bit during their conversation towards the end. 

 

All in all, this was the ending any snowbaz fan could dream for; and wherever my og enemies to lovers trope boys go, I just know that they are happy and okay. I’m so grateful for that. 

COMING SOON 

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thank you to Netgalley and Amulet Books for the E-ARC of Between Perfect and Real in exchange for an honest review. 

Between Perfect and Real is a YA debut about Dean Foster who is a trans boy finding his identity. Dean is a senior in high school who has adopted theater into his bones since he was a kid. Though Dean knows he is trans everyone at school, his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director think he's a lesbian. Dean struggles with the idea of keeping who he truly is bottled down until college and makes the decision that he doesn't want to hide who he is until then. 

This book was a solid three stars and I honestly struggled slightly with determining that rating because I did love this story but it dwindled out for me towards the end. 

Dean is a very relatable character and as someone who is genderfluid, I could truly feel the depth of his character and struggle to find his identity and voice. I loved that Dean was written to be very complex and emotional. He felt very fleshed out to me, but his friend group? Not so much. 

I loved Zoe, I found her character to be as real as Dean's. Did I enjoy her outing her boyfriend? No. Even so, she was sincere about her mistakes, and given her circumstances, I felt she was very naive, and given the chance to be educated she would have been a better character. 

Ronnie was a sweetheart, Allison really irritated me because she just wasn't present much and when she was, I felt as if she was so passive. The support group Dean meets was probably my favorite, though Jade was kind of annoying with all of the negative advice or outcomes Dean could face. Yes, it's realistic that not everything is sunshine and rainbows but personally I didn't feel it was the best solution every time Dean came looking for advice. So that leaves me with how I felt about their blossoming relationship - not a fan. 

Blake... that was so confusing. I feel like there was a lot of potential there plot-wise and it just fell off.

I felt the same way with the theater themes as well. We know that theater is a big part of Dean's life but we don't spend a lot of time in the theater or Romeo's role as Dean. I just expected a lot more from that. 

Aside from that Dean's journey is fresh and realistic. That's why it's a solid three stars, I just didn't enjoy the ending all that much.

2.5 stars 

To start off I want to thank NetGalley and Bloomsbury for providing me with an e-arc for As Far As You'll Take Me in exchange for an honest review. I started reading this before the publishing date and honestly considered DNFing it more than a handful of times, but I kept pushing through and finally finished it. I do appreciate the number of own voice authors creating real-world queer stories but this wasn't one I'd personally recommend nor can I say will sit with me. 

I had a lot of issues with the storytelling, this writing style just isn't for me. I've grown out of the YA contemporary phase but I do try to get my hands on lgbtq+ reads no matter the genre. I felt that the maturity level of this story could have been higher, Marty is a graduate of high school trying to find his place in the world as an adult. In my opinion, that should have led this story to have a more mature tone but it didn't. I know it was targeted for Young Adults but it just seemed so off. 

Marty was a very irritating main character, and this book tried to tackle a lot of different issues including mental health, eating disorders, forced outing, and homophobia. As much as I love books that raise awareness of such things this book didn't do that for me, not on a positive note. I found a lot of the decisions from Marty to be very toxic and he was just very immature as I stated above. 

It's disappointing because I did have high expectations for this book and I was let down. There were some good aspects just not enough to say this was an okay read for me.

I don’t rate books I dnf but I just couldn't