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A review by labunnywtf
The Women's War by Jenna Glass
2.0
Received via Netgalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Trigger warnings for basically everything bad that could ever happen to a woman. Seriously, the sexual assaults, physical assaults, rape, misogyny...it will choke even the strongest.
This book is part The Handmaid's Tale, part Game of Thrones. This is a world where women are nothing more than heir bearer's, and if a woman can't produce a child, or displeases her husband, or is just unpleasing in general, she's sent to an Abbey (get thee to a nunnery), which is forced prostitution.
But also this is a world of magic. Magic that involves spells but also plucking elements out of the air, and it's unseemly for a woman to do magic, so the abigails make the potions and sell them and give the money to the crown because they're men.
The Abbess, who was formerly the queen until the king decided she was inconvenient, casts a massive spell that kills her, her daughter, and her granddaughter, but releases some major feminine mojo into the world. Women can no longer be forced to bear children if they don't want to. Also, they get a Kai if they're raped, which is basically like a death element that...is confusing because it's not like they get to....kill people with it?
There are a lot of main characters here. We have Alysoon, Ellin, Jinnell, Graesan...
Freaking fantasy spellings.
But also Shelvin and Chanlix and Delnamal and Zarsha and HOLY SHIT THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE TO KEEP UP WITH.
Seriously, this book is massive and it's only book one. I know fantasy is known for being massive and bulky, but this book should have been split. Maybe only into two, but there is far too much happening in this book, and the pacing is completely off because we can only spend so much time with this many people.
The chapters are not devoted to one character, or one setting. There are often three different viewpoints and three different settings in just one chapter, and there's no flow, the three people aren't discussing the same event or the same information, they're not getting information learned through the previous POV.
There's no flow to this. And with a chunker of a book like this, pacing is everything.
Now for the sexual assault aspect. Women are treated like garbage here. There is a Hollywood trope wherein a woman must be assaulted, physically or sexually, and then she's a tough badass who fights against injustice. There's also the trope of a woman being assaulted and/or killed to make a male main character stronger, but luckily we haven't had that happen. Yet.
The power these women are granted is because of their mistreatment. And that aspect is what made me want to read this book. A woman given power by a terrible man's actions. But that's...that's not really what's happening here. The violence is so graphic, it's really hard to read. And the "power" that comes from it isn't really power.
Ohhhh, you better be nice to your wife, or she'll never be able to bear children! Um, k, I'm going to beat and rape her repeatedly and threaten worse if she doesn't consent to giving me a child. Or I'll send her to live with the other whores, where other men will beat and rape her. NBD.
What?
And see above re: the Kai element, which I saw used to make men completely flacid, which is great and all, but that's...what?
Also, we're dealing with woman empowerment, but we have literally no diverse representation. The "bad guys" are super pale and that's disappointing, and their ways are more oppressive than these OTHER oppressive people, but other than two instances of complaining about them being "colorless" with pale hair, we don't get anything about darker skin, or richer tones.
And also, why is there no gay representation? Or asexual? These women are living in an abbey where they are violated multiple times a day, but we don't get any POVs about how maybe they don't want to have sex at all and that's why they're Unwanted?
Not that I needed more POVs, but we could've gotten rid of QUITE A FEW to make room for some actual diversity.
No. Just no. The further I got, the less I wanted to read because it is so long, so rambling. If this book had been split, we could've focused on the different settings and different people and felt entirely more invested in the story.
So disappointing. Much, much disappointment.
Trigger warnings for basically everything bad that could ever happen to a woman. Seriously, the sexual assaults, physical assaults, rape, misogyny...it will choke even the strongest.
This book is part The Handmaid's Tale, part Game of Thrones. This is a world where women are nothing more than heir bearer's, and if a woman can't produce a child, or displeases her husband, or is just unpleasing in general, she's sent to an Abbey (get thee to a nunnery), which is forced prostitution.
But also this is a world of magic. Magic that involves spells but also plucking elements out of the air, and it's unseemly for a woman to do magic, so the abigails make the potions and sell them and give the money to the crown because they're men.
The Abbess, who was formerly the queen until the king decided she was inconvenient, casts a massive spell that kills her, her daughter, and her granddaughter, but releases some major feminine mojo into the world. Women can no longer be forced to bear children if they don't want to. Also, they get a Kai if they're raped, which is basically like a death element that...is confusing because it's not like they get to....kill people with it?
There are a lot of main characters here. We have Alysoon, Ellin, Jinnell, Graesan...
Freaking fantasy spellings.
But also Shelvin and Chanlix and Delnamal and Zarsha and HOLY SHIT THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE TO KEEP UP WITH.
Seriously, this book is massive and it's only book one. I know fantasy is known for being massive and bulky, but this book should have been split. Maybe only into two, but there is far too much happening in this book, and the pacing is completely off because we can only spend so much time with this many people.
The chapters are not devoted to one character, or one setting. There are often three different viewpoints and three different settings in just one chapter, and there's no flow, the three people aren't discussing the same event or the same information, they're not getting information learned through the previous POV.
There's no flow to this. And with a chunker of a book like this, pacing is everything.
Now for the sexual assault aspect. Women are treated like garbage here. There is a Hollywood trope wherein a woman must be assaulted, physically or sexually, and then she's a tough badass who fights against injustice. There's also the trope of a woman being assaulted and/or killed to make a male main character stronger, but luckily we haven't had that happen. Yet.
The power these women are granted is because of their mistreatment. And that aspect is what made me want to read this book. A woman given power by a terrible man's actions. But that's...that's not really what's happening here. The violence is so graphic, it's really hard to read. And the "power" that comes from it isn't really power.
Ohhhh, you better be nice to your wife, or she'll never be able to bear children! Um, k, I'm going to beat and rape her repeatedly and threaten worse if she doesn't consent to giving me a child. Or I'll send her to live with the other whores, where other men will beat and rape her. NBD.
What?
And see above re: the Kai element, which I saw used to make men completely flacid, which is great and all, but that's...what?
Also, we're dealing with woman empowerment, but we have literally no diverse representation. The "bad guys" are super pale and that's disappointing, and their ways are more oppressive than these OTHER oppressive people, but other than two instances of complaining about them being "colorless" with pale hair, we don't get anything about darker skin, or richer tones.
And also, why is there no gay representation? Or asexual? These women are living in an abbey where they are violated multiple times a day, but we don't get any POVs about how maybe they don't want to have sex at all and that's why they're Unwanted?
Not that I needed more POVs, but we could've gotten rid of QUITE A FEW to make room for some actual diversity.
No. Just no. The further I got, the less I wanted to read because it is so long, so rambling. If this book had been split, we could've focused on the different settings and different people and felt entirely more invested in the story.
So disappointing. Much, much disappointment.