Hi friends, happy Monday! I hope you’re all doing well. Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian followers! Today I’m posting my review of Shelley Parker-Chan’s novel, He Who Drowned the World.

You can read my review of book one: She Who Became the Sun

He Who Drowned the World by: Shelley Parker-Chan: Zhu Yuanzhang is sitting high after her victory of becoming the Radiant King. Now, she’s got her eyes set on becoming emperor, but she’s not the only one with that goal in mind. A new contender might be even closer to earning the throne, the scholar Wang Baoxiang. Baoxiang has a lot of pent up rage and plans to use that to send his competition to their knees, seeking revenge, and wanting to become a corrupt leader. It’s an everyman for themselves war as they all battle with everything they’ve got to win. As much as this novel was really good, it just didn’t live up to the hype of the first book. This was still a really well written and put together novel, but it just hit different. Where the first had a lot of plot progression and character growth, as our characters start young and we watch them progress through the years into who they become, this one was strictly on the war at play. Yes, we see these characters grow and change in the way that war will make anyone change, but it wasn’t the same. This had a very long-drawn-out plot to see who would win emperor, and that took away from the enjoyment a bit because it slowed down the pacing. Everything that happened, happened in slow motion it felt. The pacing would pick up in parts, but it felt a little wonky because it was predominantly slow, but would speed up, only to slow down again. It made it hard for the reader to find a groove while reading. This reader almost wanted to give up because it could be a tedious read, but they held on, and for the most part, they’re glad they did. The plot was good, this picked up right where the first book left off, with war right before us, and this took us to the battles of war, but with less physical scenes and more mental scenes, really playing into a war of wits and who could outwit, who. It was clever, but at times could also be a slog to read. A lot of betrayal and a lot of people using sex to get what they want, which felt very accurate to real life, but the reader found a bit repetitive after a while. What kept the reader going was Parker-Chan’s writing; it was really beautiful, even in the darkest of times. Her poetic use of words were brilliantly placed, which also really helped in feeling for these characters, especially when characters turned on each other. Her power of words made the reader feel sorry, even if they were doing something terrible because we could tell they were conflicted in their actions, we could really sense that through the writing and that was really well done. This had intelligently intricate plots, smart writing with characters who were morally gray, but had a lot of emotions. In the end, this was by no means a fast read, it was a sit down, take your time read, where the characters and the world rebuilt itself.