She Who Became the Sun

"This is a good one. She Who Became the Sun is a historical fantasy with light speculative elements. It is set in a country which draws heavily on Chinese history. It’s about Zhu Chongba, a starving orphan who dies at quite an early age. As a young girl, her brother is prophesied to become emperor, but he dies–so Zhu assumes his identity and fights her way into power. It is based on a historical emperor, I understand, but with a speculative twist. The novel does really interesting things with gender, because the person now calling themselves Zhu doesn’t strictly identify as a girl. She occupies this space between genders, which I find fascinating. Zhu has a relationship with a woman, who eventually becomes her wife. I would call that a lesbian relationship, despite the fact that Zhu has this very interesting stuff going on regarding her gender. Even if it didn’t contain all this interesting stuff about gender and queerness, I would still say this is a fantastic adventure story. I would read it three times. It’s told from multiple points of view, and is one of those novels where every time you switch, you think: ‘Yes! It’s this person again.’"