Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Oathbound

I only want to read women in fantasy written by Lackey. I’m spoiled, I can’t go back. All of her books that I’ve read are great, but this one has a particular theme of feminine rage that I just loved. Real rage and real justice, not sugarcoated at all. I can’t recommend enough.

Content Warnings

vmp5062's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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tarocannotread's review

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2.0

Honestly this was a pretty solid 4 stars

right up until the "heroines" punish a rapist by "making him into a woman" and sending him back to get gang raped by his previous rapist friends..... and that's not the only case of rape by the way, so super heavy trigger warning for that. Other than that

there was also a huge amount of TERF energy and rhetoric in the pages and in between the lines, some essentialist gender bullshit, some evangelist notions of irredeemability... Which is a shame because I liked Tarma and the format of a fantasy just being a bunch of small adventures, but the author's own personal beliefs bleeding through the pages really just threw me off and ruined my experience. 2 out of 5 stars.

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deerlybeloved's review

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This book gets two stars for one reason and one reason only; I enjoyed Need as a concept, and I enjoyed the world building that you see between the less ideal parts. Outside of this, though, I would not recommend this book to anyone. Any reviews you see will mention the same things:

Fuck this book.

Fuck this book more than I can possibly describe. It's disgusting, it's so preposterously insensitive, uninformed, and written like a trauma porn garbage heap that I can only be happy to know that the author clearly never

suffered through sexual abuse because

no one who knew what that was like would even CONSIDER writing half of this shit down. The fact that she still actively SELLS these books, not pulling them to edit them or rewrite them, is baffling, disgusting, something that should in and of itself make sure she never gets to pick up a pen or type on a keyboard ever again.

The book is written as short stories compiled together, making the pacing clunky, absurd, and hard to follow; but that is forgivable.

The plot, ridiculous pacing within those stories, and story choices all make it unreadable.

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Animal death, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Rape, Sexual violence, War, Death, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Torture, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Confinement, Gore, and Sexism

Moderate: Suicide and Suicidal thoughts

Content warning for: sexual abuse, sexual violence, slavery, child marriage, basically anything that should be handled sensitively but is NOT. I will discuss it openly and honestly below, not giving detail but saying what the book decided these topics should be used for and it can be VERY UPSETTING; It is worse to read it as it is in the book, though, trust me.

The book discusses subjects of rape, sexual violence, pedophilia, and more in the worst ways. It drops them in your lap, shows you the emotion of the characters in a hollow way, and then makes the characters simply "get over" what happens to them. One of the main characters discusses being sold into sexual slavery as a 12 year old, she cries over her trauma, there's mild worry she expresses about going to the same city where her abuser was... And then the very moment her abuser finds her, she overcomes him (off screen), and is content with him not being imprisoned for what he did. She and the other girl that he abused are both okay with him being free to roam and with children being around him, with him still having all his money, because people made a song about him. It gets worse. Sexual assault and violence against women are in every chapter, thrown around carelessly and mentioned as happening to essentially every woman you see-- but the women aren't actually effected by it, they just mention it and move along, and no one is ever actually punished for hurting them...except... A man who sexually abused and murdered dozens of women is magically made to look like a woman, and then sent into a camp with his friends to be sexually abused until he died; the other bandits aren't ever punished, and the fact that he's going to be violently abused until death is seen as the ""appropriate"" punishment. When he escapes, the fact that he ""looks like a woman"" is portrayed as a horrible thing. The main villain is a demon who sexually enslaves and abuses women until they die. Only women. And he gets men to join him to do it too. The bandit brings him to the world after the main characters banished him the first time, and the demon ""makes him into a woman"" and then proceeds to sexually abuse him more. Later on, the bandit is said to have enjoyed being sexually abused. The main characters then get captured by the demon and sexually assaulted. Tarma is repeatedly sexually abused for over a day, and then it is outright said that she, herself, did something wrong by "letting herself" be abused. I'm not kidding. She also says that her Goddess not being with her while it was happening was worse than it happening. Right after Tarma escapes the abuse, after Kethry is threatened with sexual abuse as well, she acts as if nothing happens. The way they fix it all is by turning the demon "into a woman" (read: giving him a vagina and breasts) and he is so distraught by being a woman that he becomes catatonic and, after abusing and murdering countless women (but only women) it's implied that he can be redeemed through spirituality. After over a day of this, they both leave the place it all happened and then go to an inn and promptly fall asleep with Tarma glad that her Goddess came back to her even though ""she broke her vow of celibacy"". Oh, and all of this? The reason they're adventuring after the middle part of the book when they finally get the chance to rebuild Tarma's clan? It's so Kethry can get pregnant over and over to "rebuild" Tarma's clan. After sexual violence, abuse, and horrible, unspeakable things, Kethry is still only regulated to the role of incubator.

litalia's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Book one of my decide-if-I-still-like-my-Mercedes-Lackey-books-enough-to-keep-them-on-my-shelves project and I have some seriously mixed feelings.

On the one hand, once I got into the book, I really enjoyed the stories - I like fantasy books that aren't about the end of the world!

On the other hand...

The short story that started the story isn't in this book - getting into the beginning of the book is hard.
It's a collection of short stories not billed as a collection of short stories - lots of repetition and minimal overarching plot
For some reason, we get the whole setup to a situation, then the situation is resolved off screen. This happens repeatedly. Why??!?
There's something uncomfortably male-gaze-y about how the female protagonists are described (repeatedly, due to aforementioned short story situation - it probably would bother me less if it had been once at the beginning of the book).
Rape. A) there's a lot. B)
The up-until-then-not-at-all-morally-grey protagonists decide to punish a rapist and murderer by arranging for him to be gang raped to death. This is presented as just.
Body swapping
A male character is magically transformed into a female body against his will. It is not handled well.
Asexuality. I've seen several reviews praising this book for being early ace representation, and I suppose it is, but I was uncomfortable with how it was presented. Tarma is more accurately described as celibate than ace - she wasn't ace to begin and gave up her sexuality in exchange for power from her goddess. It felt like being asexual was presented as giving something important up, rather than just a normal way to be.
Oh, and the ace character gets gang raped. Because of course she does. On the plus side, while she worries about this breaking her vow of celibacy to her goddess, it does not.

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katieg's review

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book was published in the late 80s and was definitely of its time in terms of its views on gender as a strict binary and general feminist themes. I will say that although the modes of justice enacted in this book don’t live up to feminist standards, they still delivered on narrative catharsis.

The plot and set up for this book were the main detriments for me. While the necessary set up for understanding the characters and their relationship is present at the beginning of the story, it definitely feels like the “back again” part of the quest. I would highly recommend reading the short story where the characters meet before reading this. Unfortunately this book also felt like a series of connected short stories with every one or two stories introducing a new task or conflict, it almost felt like a video game at times. As a novel however it did not work well, the lack of suspense and rising tension means that it just meanders and isn’t very compelling and I never felt the stakes while reading.

The saving grace is the relationship between the two main characters. While this isn’t the best character work I’ve ever read (and I think the use of 3rd person omniscient is a detriment to the story and characterization) Tarma and Kethry were both compelling enough that I was moved by their relationship and soul bond. It amazes me that deep female friendships are still so rare between protagonists in fantasy so I really seeing it here.

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bibliophilicwitch's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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