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The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri
Jul. 19th, 2023 10:16 amThe Jasmine Throne
3/5. Sapphic feminist epic fantasy inspired by ancient India about the princess sent into exile to a colonized nation by her cruel brother, the maid tasked with keeping her compliant who has access to secret magic, and how they are drawn to each other as they use each other for their ambitions.
There are a lot of compelling key words up there, and yet it took me a full year to read this book. Is it lush and intricate? Yes. Magical and queer? Sure. Is it utterly and completely without a single moment of lightness, let alone even the faintest hint of humor? Oh god yes, and therein lies my problem. This book exists entirely, for nearly 200,000 words, at a minimum score of 8 on the dramatic!emotions! scale, with excursions upward. It’s about fate and what it is for a woman to be monstrous – to the world and to herself and how those are different – and yes, a whole lot of bad shit happens to everyone in this book. And not one person, for a single second, whistles in the dark. It’s just wall-to-wall dramatic speeches and hushed, meaningful conversation, and I’m sorry, but I just do not vibe with this sort of thing anymore.
This book particularly suffered in comparison to Tchaikovsky’s City of Last Chances, which I read concurrently with finishing this. City is grim as fuck, but also darkly funny. And I mean, look, you do not have to give me jokes. You do not have to make an execution scene so grimly strangely funny that I snorted, as Tchaikovsky did. But you do have to convince me that you understand that humans light candles in the dark, that we make fleeting joy for ourselves, that we just stop and take a breath once in a while. Suri gave me none of that.
Content notes: Forced drug use, a whole lot of burning women and children alive, other violence.
3/5. Sapphic feminist epic fantasy inspired by ancient India about the princess sent into exile to a colonized nation by her cruel brother, the maid tasked with keeping her compliant who has access to secret magic, and how they are drawn to each other as they use each other for their ambitions.
There are a lot of compelling key words up there, and yet it took me a full year to read this book. Is it lush and intricate? Yes. Magical and queer? Sure. Is it utterly and completely without a single moment of lightness, let alone even the faintest hint of humor? Oh god yes, and therein lies my problem. This book exists entirely, for nearly 200,000 words, at a minimum score of 8 on the dramatic!emotions! scale, with excursions upward. It’s about fate and what it is for a woman to be monstrous – to the world and to herself and how those are different – and yes, a whole lot of bad shit happens to everyone in this book. And not one person, for a single second, whistles in the dark. It’s just wall-to-wall dramatic speeches and hushed, meaningful conversation, and I’m sorry, but I just do not vibe with this sort of thing anymore.
This book particularly suffered in comparison to Tchaikovsky’s City of Last Chances, which I read concurrently with finishing this. City is grim as fuck, but also darkly funny. And I mean, look, you do not have to give me jokes. You do not have to make an execution scene so grimly strangely funny that I snorted, as Tchaikovsky did. But you do have to convince me that you understand that humans light candles in the dark, that we make fleeting joy for ourselves, that we just stop and take a breath once in a while. Suri gave me none of that.
Content notes: Forced drug use, a whole lot of burning women and children alive, other violence.