She Who Became the Sun

Excellent.

I don't even know where to begin

I could talk about its effective exploration of gender roles, I could talk about how much I loved the characters, I could talk about how the lightness of the romance only made the darkness that shadowed the book seem even darker. I could even compare it to The Poppy War trilogy though that would be a disservice to both books/series as they are strong separate pieces of work.

The weaponisation of empathy, how understanding other people so deeply can be used as a means to an end, stuck out to me. As well as the idea that ambitions of power will always be incompatible with kindness and will always corrupt. “Like knows like,” as they say.

It was as excellent as it was devastating.

I don't know if I have the strength in me to read the rest of this series but it's not because this book wasn't good. Almost the opposite, it was too good. Everything I wanted to happen has happened and now I'm too scared to see what comes next. It's the feeling of reaching the peak of a rollercoaster and knowing that what comes next can only be the descent. Some people enjoy that but there's a reason I don't get on rollercoasters.