a russian-language fantasy series set in a made-up country resembling france of a time period that let me assume it's a musketeers' fanfiction at first.
yea it's quite an expansion and you can really feel that the author thinks she's got all the time in the world. there are scenes that are just dropped there and she never comes back to them. likely in the next books, but not in the one they're introduced. there are also a lot of endnotes explaining geography, history, religion, politics, etc, but most of that could have been explained in the text. especially since it's a 3rd person and what a better point of view, to add explanations? that was annoying. not the endnotes in general, but when it's 6 per page and some of them are just 2 words or 1 sentence.
that's technical, though. there were some red flags in the content. for instance, she made up an ethnical minority within that country that has enough money to influence its politics (and even pays the neighboring country to start a war). they're a rather closed community and I just can't help comparing, you know. a rich and powerful minority with its own non-converting religion. and their only woman who is given a point of view falls in love with an outsider and is so happy that because she's part of a ritual she can't be married off to anyone. I'm just so not sure about that. I mean, members of a minority don't marry each other only because an authoritarian father told them so. it's mostly because they have shared context, shared background, culture, texts, etc. outsiders aren't even that attractive when you think of how much harder a relationship without all that is. if she was one of the characters belonging to that group, that'd be ok. but she's the only girl with a voice and at all looks so fetish-y.
women are generally given the role of a sexual object. not surprising, considering it's a russian author, but again, annoying, if you have experience with literature that's more respectful. granted, most of the world and story is seen through male eyes but even when the perspective is given to women, they see themselves in the same way, either in respect to sex or marriage. I do bear in mind what "time" is being portrayed but, for example that girl from the minority is presented as a rebel of sorts because she sneaks to read the holy texts that are forbidden to women. even if most of her brain is devoted to love because she's young, she could have at least been reflecting on what she read? on the philosophy of her culture and religion? who even reads forbidden holy text without thinking at least something about them? come on. any woman in any time period could have a problem that wasn't related to being a wife, a wife-to-be, or a prostitute. somehow the decision was to just leave them that.
I hope it gets better in the next books because the author is clearly counting on some reader loyalty and maybe allowing herself more than she would with a standalone. but I'm rather skeptical. what I liked about the book is that it was interesting while you were reading it and that finishing it put me in a better mood for reading more complicated books
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