Reviews with content warning for Adult/minor relationship - The Paper Magician

the beginnings of an age-disparity apprentice/mentor romance which makes me supes uncomfortable, even more so when you hear about the scholarship thing

; and chapter 13 has a stark description in dialogue of someone dying by suicide.

So. How to rate this book. On the one hand, it was short, and fast-paced, and the description were detailed so that I could very much picture everything that was going on. The writing didn't fully sing, but there were some great lines, and this author has some skills I respect. On the other hand...the overwhelming uncomfortableness I feel at certain problematic elements of this story and the characters is just...well, it weighs too heavily against this book.

In this book, we have an age disparity of eleven years between the apprentice Ceony (main character) and her mentor, Magician Emery Thane. Eleven years might not be too big a deal--I've got relatives with marriages that have that age gap. But when you factor in that Ceony is literally only NINETEEN when this story takes place, it gets a twinge weird. Thinking about myself, at age 30, being romantically interested in a nineteen year-old who hasn't finished developing their prefrontal cortex yet...gross. There's a definite maturity/power gap there.
Then, there's the economic factor. Mild spoilers ahead, so skip this next part if you don't want them:

We find out that Thane literally paid for Ceony's scholarship to her school for magic. So there's a disparity in their basic economic station, but more than that, there's a chance that Ceony feels indebted to this particular man for footing the bill for her (very expensive) post-secondary education.

And you can tell pretty early on where the romance is going, by about the third page or so, for me. In the same way that you can pretty much always tell in a romance novel who the main character is going to end up with. So I was immediately uncomfortable, and texted my friend who gifted me this series, asking if my suspicions were correct. The answer did not surprise me.

So there's all that. Problematic on its own, supporting this idea of it being "romantic" for an older man to basically set up a young woman to be behold to him. But then, we get little to no characterization of the main character. She just...doesn't have much of a personality? She was going to be a chef if she didn't get into the magic school. And she misses her dog. That's it. That's all we really know about her, and her past, until the scene right before the big climactic showdown.

And, can we talk about that scene? I'll hide it again for those of you who don't want it spoiled. But cw: suicide coming up, as well.

When we do finally learn about Ceony's past, she pulls out this very salient fact that her best friend killed herself, and Ceony discovered the body. Except, that best friend? Does she have any characterization of her own? Do we know how important she was to Ceony, or why she died by suicide? NO. NO WE DO NOT. Do you know why? Because that poor secondary character literally only exists to give Ceony some "depth" and a past. That's it. So someone dying by suicide is a light enough topic for a flat, convenient secondary character, apparently. And readers, I am so f*ing tired of people not treating suicide with the basic levity it deserves. I've volunteered for the suicide criss line. I've been trained in this stuff. I've been suicidal myself. And I can begin to understand the harm of storytellers making a death by suicide such a sidetone, such a convenient one-off to characterize their "more important" surviving character. I am sick of it, and I wish to all the gods this author hadn't thrown it in so abruptly, with little warning for readers who might really want or need a content warning before that kind of graphic description of a death by suicide.

Add a dash of insta-love, and our main character's emphasis on curling her hair and putting on makeup once she is determined to walk straight into a romantic relationship, and the fact that we see everything relevant from the dude's past but NOT from our main character's past, because maybe the man is the only important and well-rounded part of any healthy relationship? *shudder*

It smacks of wrongness. It makes me uncomfortable. It romanticizes stuff that is literally harmful for us to romanticize.

And, unfortunately, it is pointing to an ever-increasing pattern I've noticed in books by Mormon authors.

Huge caveat here: these patterns might not have a direct correlation to these author's Mormon beliefs. And they may not reflect directly on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You can't take a single person belonging to a religion and hold them up as a monolith to stand for the entire religion.

That said, I am starting to see a pattern in how certain popular Mormon authors handle some topics that I feel really strongly about. For example, suicide. We see it handled in Way of Kings in a way that is a bit less problematic than how it is handled in The Paper Magician, thankfully, but it is still an overly-convenient plot point, something trotted out to garner sympathy for the main character without fully exploring the depths of the theme. Likewise when Bella slips into her depression in the Twilight books after Edward leaves, and she starts engaging in a lot of risky behaviors because she is suicidal over the thought of not having Edward. I'm not going to say that never happens in real life, but I am going to say that the author romanticized it. And magically solved everything by just reuniting the couple, thus ending Bella's streak of suicidality like some insta-cure. These are heavy topics, and should be handled with more respect and understanding than I think any of these authors have undertaken.

There are other themes that are problematic to me, which others might disagree with due to their own faith/beliefs. The waiting-until-marriage purity culture is not something that resonates with me, a Pagan, at all. I believe it leads to sex shaming, lack of proper sex education, and that lack of education can lead to lack of protection. So I'm always going to be at least a tiny bit uncomfortable when that theme shows up. It's definitely going to be present in this Paper Magician series. It's definitely present in Way of Kings. It's definitely present in the Twilight saga.

Could these things have absolutely nothing to do with the Mormon faith? Is it just a coincidence, or a product of all of us living in the same society where the vast majority of people don't work hard to comprehend suicidality, and they romanticize toxic relationships, and and and? Sure. Of course. But there's a booming community of Mormon SFF authors. There's a lot of support and educational resources available for Mormons who want to be SFF authors. And the books I've read by these Mormon authors are so lauded by so many of my non-Mormon friends. And personally, I think the hype is outsized to what the books deserve. So I'm trying to understand the popularity these books garner. I'm trying to comprehend why they appeal to so many people who might otherwise agree with me about the problematic depictions I've noted. And since my religion is such an integral part of my own stories, I can't help but analyze these stories in connection with the Mormon faith.

My point in outlining this pattern is a somewhat selfish one--I want people to consider the author as context when they read books. It's not essential to perform literary criticism via the author-as-context lens, surely. There's many different types of literary criticism and author-as-context is simply one of them. But when it comes to our speculative fiction, in particular, I think there's license in these stories to moralize, to advance a personal world view. It's why I write speculative fiction. And I believe it might be one of the reasons that so many Mormons are drawn to speculative fiction, as well. There's an intriguing article on that trend, which might be good food for thought if you're interested in further reading: https://mormonartist.net/articles/is-it-something-in-the-water/

So, how much of the Mormon worldview and belief system is infusing these works of fiction? How much is it normalizing or romanticizing themes that may or may not square with our own worldviews and beliefs? These are the questions I want people to be asking themselves when they read books. I certainly hope that people would do the same for my books, picking apart what themes are present because of my own beliefs. Only through understanding these things can we really guard ourselves against unwanted societal enculturation. And yes, I am very much advocating for readers of my own stories to guard against unwanted societal enculturation originating from me. Take what works for you. Leave the rest. Always.

Ultimately, this book didn't work for me. I can't look past the problematic themes that make me uncomfortable, and I can't recommend it to friends because I think it perpetuates harmful stuff. Which sucks, cause there really are some good lines in here, and the magic system is pretty darn cool.

Content Warnings

evanescent's review against another edition

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1.75

Content Warnings

angelicathebookworm's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

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