I’ve heard great things but this is a DNF for me at page 84.
In theory a book described as epic fantasy, lesbian necromancer, mysterious origin story, with bad ass women MCs, should have been perfect for me. But I just didn’t click and normally I would have given it a bit longer, we need more books like this in the world, but the description of one character just turned me off.
“Ortus was basically a morbid donkey.”
“Coupling him to Harrow had been rather like yoking a doughnut to a cobra.”
“…as she loaded her trunk, all of it with old hand-me-downs of Ortus’s that could be hastily remade into three different Gideon-sized articles.”
The above are the worst examples for me, it went on with more standard ways of representing fat bodies as “subtly” negative, but basically Ortus is lazy, inept, weak, has a watery smile, walks lumbering, is too attached to his mother (although it seems the father is dead fighting for Ninth so maybe some grace could have been be given), has poor hygiene. The only thing shown on page is the relationship with the mother so various degrees of mean descriptions of fat bodies in connection with negative characteriscs is used to get the point across about Ortus.
After reading Vo’s Singing Hills Cycle the contrast is rather glaring.
It makes me uncomfortable putting the body descriptions front and center, but I’m trying to be more honest about the descriptions of fat bodies in books and how they make me feel. I wish I would continue with this series because of the fan love I’ve seen but here we are.
Emilie's Bookish Thoughts 