Whew, what a ride. My thoughts are not aswirl as much as I thought they would be but my convictions about it are as firm as when I started: it's a damn good book. Very pacy, with strong characters, that explores gender in an interesting way with a plot that never once stalls. Set in the 14th Century China during the Mongol occupation, we follow Zhu Chongba, a poor girl who takes the name of her brother during a famine who begs her way into a monastery (where boys are only allowed). From there she endures tribulations from teachers and meets like-minded friends in the beginning of a staggering sequence of events (honestly, there is a lot of plot and while the basic elements are easy to follow, the amount of movement is impressive in a 400 page novel). Parker-Chan themselves said that it is a sort of writing into history as Zhu Chongba is a real person who became Emperor of China, a peasant man who ruled over all. Parker-Chan decided to play with the idea of if he was actually not a man. It's not as straightforward as that because despite being written with she/her pronouns, Zhu is coded as non-binary, the same for Ouyang, I would say. In fact, that sense of recognition and alikeness even as they stood on opposite sides of the conflict was interesting. Furthermore, the exploration of the tensions and contradictions in Buddhist thought: of the absence of desire and what that means in relation to ambition.

There were some interesting surprises and a lot of twists and turns. It felt like reading a soap, and again, Parker-Chan was inspired by Chinese TV shows that were soapy in nature. It goes deeper than that as there are real twists that are affecting and surprising.

The book never stops having things happen.

I've a few minor criticisms that border more on personal requests. While it never feels like it wants to waste our time, it could definitely stand to luxuriate in certain scenes a bit more. Especially towards the end, there are characters that sort of appear and disappear quite quickly, as well as certain reversals that happen in succession. Some breaks and couple of lulls between them would have added to a sense of cohesion and make it feel a little less rushed. But they're pretty minor. What it does well, it does very well and I'm excited for the second (and final) book in this sequence, as well as Parker-Chan's future endeavours.