Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Daughter of the Empire

This one started well for me, apart from the impossibility that is 17 year old Mara (in order for everything she does and achieves not to drive you nuts with its implausibility, you have to make the decision to well and truly suspend disbelief and try and enjoy the fact that a young woman succeeds in such a brutal misogynistic setting).

I love the setting, it made a really nice change to read a book set in an east Asian-inspired world that is really well realised. I liked Mara, at first, it was purely due to the fact that she is the protagonist that drew me into a bigger story and world that otherwise might have bored me. (I do like some political intrigue but this entire story is basically based around that, and could have been dull for me personally.) I also liked the characters of the Acoma that surrounded her (Lujan, Papewaio, Keyoke, Nacoya). I also got very excited at the introduction of the

cho-ja

and was very disappointed that we saw nothing more of them for the whole book.
The prose is quite compelling (though the chapters are a little too long for my liking, it was in danger of feeling like it was dragging in places, and long chapters don't help with that).

Where it began to fall down for me was nearly halfway through,

from her marriage to Bunto onwards. I hated him and everything he did, I hated the fact that Mara had to marry and go through that in order to bear a son (and I question whether she really needed to as swiftly and unwisely as she did), and what's more then have her son's father murdered in order to keep her (or house of Acoma) powerful position in the Council, I basically hated everything about that.

I do realise it's a whole world away from the world we live in, this society is a culture shock I suppose.

When that part was over, I was sucked back in again, but then it all goes horribly downhill again

from the seduction of Bruli.

I haven't fully processed it all, but I feel like what this book (the authors?) are saying about women and men when it comes to sex is horribly problematic in parts. Spoken by Nacoya in ch 14:

"You must judge carefully how far to push Bruli. He may become too impassioned to stop, and having Pape kill him for attempted rape would do the Acoma great harm at this point." As if it's Mara who has the choice and control over that??

This borders on victim blaming, and it's not only this scene that suggests that men have no control over their decisions when they're being seduced (and that the women are to blame) - it comes up with other characters too.

And, Nacoya again:

"The rest of us live at the whim of our lords or husbands or fathers, and what you have just practiced [the seduction of Bruli] is the mightiest weapon at our command."

Admittedly, this could be saying more about the world in which poor Mara lives than about the attitude of the authors towards women (and men) in general. Mara has to become just as brutal and cold as her male counterparts, in a different (i.e. sexual) way, and I personally found it depressing and triggering. I felt turning her power into being primarily about sexuality took away from how intelligent, brave and strong Mara was as a person in the first half of the book.

It's mainly all this ^^ that led to a drop in rating from 4.5 or even 5 to 3.5 stars for me, unfortunately, because it spoilt a book I was otherwise quite enjoying. The ending was satisfying, but I'm not sure whether I will continue with this trilogy, I'm too afraid there'll be more of the same!

ETA (same day) - Having chatted with my friend about this who gave me the book, I may be misinterpreting the stuff I found difficult (above) - that this is the point, how the society is in this world and that Mara (as she's a woman) has to fight to try and do things differently. I will be continuing with the trilogy to find out what she manages to achieve next and how the issues are addressed going forward. I did enjoy a lot about this book so I'm hoping to enjoy books 2 & 3 more perhaps!

Content Warnings

More...