Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore
May. 21st, 2015 01:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI have very mixed feelings about this book and it dredged up a lot of Feelings so I'm going to write about it while it's fresh so I don't keep mulling over it and trigger myself.
This is a rough sequel to Graceling. In that book we meet the princess Bitterblue, rescued from her awful father. In this one we see her, and her kingdom, recover from his rule. Other than that it's a moderately engaging "new young monarch tries to figure out the political situation, rule wisely, and not get killed while also figuring out things like friends and relationships" plot. That aspect I thought was handled pretty well, though some might find the way the romantic subplot was handled frustrating.
What I have mixed feelings about is the handling of recovery from trauma. Literally the entire country, including most of the main characters, has PTSD. This is mostly handled pretty well, with one very significant and unpleasant exception.
It does that thing where up to a certain point you can recover from trauma and you're always touched by it but can be a functional person who does good in the world. But past a certain point you are ~broken~, and will either die tragically or end up hurting others. Or both!
And that point is basically rape. There are many characters who successfully survive and work through their trauma during the book. And many rape victims. And I can think of noone who is explicitly both, though some are implied.
I feel weird wishing worse things had happened to Bitterblue when she was a child, and she is definitely still traumatised, but the fact that her mother so successfully protected her (and then died) creates this subtext that the reason Bitterblue is able to untangle the situation and help her country is that she's not as ~broken~ as everyone else. Which. Uh. Fuck you Kristen Cashore. (the mind-game-y rape trauma in these books cut a little close to home for me)
On the plus side there is a LOT of compassion for the "broken" characters, even the ones who hurt people, and many of them get to do some very positive things before they die etc. So it's better than, say, Veronica Mars. But still.
I still plan on reading the remaining book in the series, Fire. But I will have my guard up.
EDIT: Oh and I might as well mention that the book contains a lot of VERY triggery subjects: self harm, child abuse, rape, torture, animal abuse, probably others I'm forgetting. It's overall pretty optimistic in tone and doesn't describe much in detail but could still be upsetting.
This is a rough sequel to Graceling. In that book we meet the princess Bitterblue, rescued from her awful father. In this one we see her, and her kingdom, recover from his rule. Other than that it's a moderately engaging "new young monarch tries to figure out the political situation, rule wisely, and not get killed while also figuring out things like friends and relationships" plot. That aspect I thought was handled pretty well, though some might find the way the romantic subplot was handled frustrating.
What I have mixed feelings about is the handling of recovery from trauma. Literally the entire country, including most of the main characters, has PTSD. This is mostly handled pretty well, with one very significant and unpleasant exception.
It does that thing where up to a certain point you can recover from trauma and you're always touched by it but can be a functional person who does good in the world. But past a certain point you are ~broken~, and will either die tragically or end up hurting others. Or both!
And that point is basically rape. There are many characters who successfully survive and work through their trauma during the book. And many rape victims. And I can think of noone who is explicitly both, though some are implied.
I feel weird wishing worse things had happened to Bitterblue when she was a child, and she is definitely still traumatised, but the fact that her mother so successfully protected her (and then died) creates this subtext that the reason Bitterblue is able to untangle the situation and help her country is that she's not as ~broken~ as everyone else. Which. Uh. Fuck you Kristen Cashore. (the mind-game-y rape trauma in these books cut a little close to home for me)
On the plus side there is a LOT of compassion for the "broken" characters, even the ones who hurt people, and many of them get to do some very positive things before they die etc. So it's better than, say, Veronica Mars. But still.
I still plan on reading the remaining book in the series, Fire. But I will have my guard up.
EDIT: Oh and I might as well mention that the book contains a lot of VERY triggery subjects: self harm, child abuse, rape, torture, animal abuse, probably others I'm forgetting. It's overall pretty optimistic in tone and doesn't describe much in detail but could still be upsetting.
no subject
Date: 2015-05-20 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-20 10:00 pm (UTC)Anyway, the guardedness is warranted -- Fire also deals with triggery stuff, though the feel is different.
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Date: 2015-05-21 04:23 pm (UTC)nods I'd heard that, and since I was curious about Bitterblue and my local library doesn't seem to have Fire, decided it could wait.
Anyway, the guardedness is warranted -- Fire also deals with triggery stuff, though the feel is different.
Good to know, thanks!
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Date: 2015-05-21 04:27 pm (UTC)That's good to know! Though I can't think of another series I've encountered where people seem to have such strongly held and differering opinions on which one is best. Which I guess is a sign they're all good, just in different ways that don't work the same way for different people. So I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it works for me!
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Date: 2015-05-23 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-24 03:44 pm (UTC)That's two votes for Fire being better than Bitterblue! Now I just have to reserve it.