lightreads | Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
My friend Jen once in a while posts a list of words that probably don't exist in German, but should. Here's one: a book that makes you really really happy even though you're making a long list of its flaws as you read it.

A young adult story about two teenagers in the south of France stumbling into an ancient love triangle. Full of old cathedrals, and verbal photographs of the countryside, and family tensions and people coming through for each other.

Let's just preface every point I'm about to make with 'I really enjoyed it, but . . ."

. . . but seriously, these fifteen-year-olds act at least thirty, particularly when it comes to sex. Not in the doing, which they don't, but in the emotional ease with sophistication.

. . . but there is something just slightly off about Kay's fixation with love triangles. I can't put my finger on it. Something just a bit squidgey about gender. That they're entirely focused on male desire and women as objects is not quite right, but in the ballpark.

. . . but the ending was disappointing.

Still. It's a young adult book where the grown-ups are also awesome, and it does a beautiful job with that part of France, and I dug the entire cast. And sometimes I just don't care about everything else.

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