The sequel to one of my favorite books, She Who Became the Sun, He Who Drowned the World continues the story of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, who has come from obscurity to become one of the most powerful leaders in an alternate China. She'll go up against Madam Zhang, a queen who has an army that could beat her, and Baoxiang, the scholar son of the late Prince of Henan who has maneuvered his way into the capital. Zhu will have to team up with Ouyang, the disgraced eunuch general who sliced off her arm. Together, they may be able to take the throne and get Ouyang's revenge against the Great Khan.

The good: As before, the writing by Shelley Chan in this book is exquisite. Her imagery and poetic language was both haunting and easy to parse. They masterfully wove the 3-5 narratives together in a way that made sense and built upon our knowledge of the world. The characters were incredibly complicated and diverse, and I was excited to see most of the voices. The author made sure to pull at our heartstrings with heartbreaking deaths, sacrifices, and debauchery which still hurts me after reading it. I loved the complicated relationships as well, between Zhu and Ouyang, Zhu and Ma, Baoxiang with his dead family, and Madam Zhang with her lovers and her own body.

The meh: I felt this book lost some of the charm of the first book, which was mainly communicated through its humor. Though I recognize this was a book primarily about suffering, I felt it didn't quite match the tone of the first book. This may be good for some people but I missed the banter from the first book. I also had a problem with the climax being the very end of the story. I very much wanted to see a falling action and the consequences of some of the decisions made by Zhu and other characters.

I also felt like Baoxiang and Ouyang gave in to Zhu's commands too easily in the last few pages.

It's for this reason that I'm giving the book 4 stars instead of 5, as I was a bit disappointed in the ending.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and read it very quickly. I can't remember the last time a complicated fantasy series like this drew me in so quickly and forced me to read so fast.

You will like this series if you like: complicated relationships with others and self, ambitious people, political intrigue, war, suffering, consequences, and hard questions.