This is a fairy tale about the damsel that is rescued in all of the stories, the one who's being held captive by a dragon and needs to be saved by a prince. The first chapter is told from the point of view of the prince, but as soon as he has defeated the dragon, the rest of the story is the damsel's perspective.
The damsel has no name at first. She is given a name (Ama) and clothes and most of all a purpose by her prince. She journeys back to his castle with him, the prerequisite he needed to be crowned king after his father's death. Ama remembers nothing before the moment she woke up in the prince's care, and learns what she needs to know in the castle from the queen mother, who was also a damsel, and her maidservants.
This book is good and interrogates the damsel story really well, and I liked Ama, but man. I just also didn't necessarily need to read another story about what the underlying reality of these sorts of tales are. The sexual violence that occurs in this book isn't gratuitous or without purpose, but I also spent most of the book just desperately reading on, hoping and hoping for Ama's escape and, preferably, vengeance. It satisfied me on that note, but left me feeling like I hadn't really needed to go through that in order to get there.
Grade: B
The damsel has no name at first. She is given a name (Ama) and clothes and most of all a purpose by her prince. She journeys back to his castle with him, the prerequisite he needed to be crowned king after his father's death. Ama remembers nothing before the moment she woke up in the prince's care, and learns what she needs to know in the castle from the queen mother, who was also a damsel, and her maidservants.
This book is good and interrogates the damsel story really well, and I liked Ama, but man. I just also didn't necessarily need to read another story about what the underlying reality of these sorts of tales are. The sexual violence that occurs in this book isn't gratuitous or without purpose, but I also spent most of the book just desperately reading on, hoping and hoping for Ama's escape and, preferably, vengeance. It satisfied me on that note, but left me feeling like I hadn't really needed to go through that in order to get there.
Grade: B
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