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Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
Sep. 8th, 2018 05:59 pmTrail of Lightning
3/5. Gritty fantasy set on a reservation post climate apocalypse, when legends and gods are starting to walk again.
I loved the worldbuilding here, but otherwise did not like this as much as everyone else seems to. Mostly I didn't actually enjoy spending time with either of the main characters. He is the sort of guy who will mansplain "women like [thing that all women apparently like with the subtext of 'before I stick my dick in them.'] He is more complex than that, and maybe he's interesting to some people, but he's exactly the sort of guy I deliberately make zero time for in real life, so. And as for her – well, she's more interesting, but her arc is deeply concerned with, like, the violence within and am I truly evil I must be and etc. etc. blah blah blah. Been there. Have the t-shirt. Their prickly friendship was okay, but their romance did not move the needle even a hair for me.
That was all more scathing than this book deserves. If you want interesting and occasionally bloody fantasy peopled by majority PoC characters and underpinned by a mythology I have previously only ever encountered by way of white authors appropriating it, here you go.
3/5. Gritty fantasy set on a reservation post climate apocalypse, when legends and gods are starting to walk again.
I loved the worldbuilding here, but otherwise did not like this as much as everyone else seems to. Mostly I didn't actually enjoy spending time with either of the main characters. He is the sort of guy who will mansplain "women like [thing that all women apparently like with the subtext of 'before I stick my dick in them.'] He is more complex than that, and maybe he's interesting to some people, but he's exactly the sort of guy I deliberately make zero time for in real life, so. And as for her – well, she's more interesting, but her arc is deeply concerned with, like, the violence within and am I truly evil I must be and etc. etc. blah blah blah. Been there. Have the t-shirt. Their prickly friendship was okay, but their romance did not move the needle even a hair for me.
That was all more scathing than this book deserves. If you want interesting and occasionally bloody fantasy peopled by majority PoC characters and underpinned by a mythology I have previously only ever encountered by way of white authors appropriating it, here you go.
