A review by kivt
Closer to the Chest by Mercedes Lackey

2.0

truly pushing boundaries in how condescending a book can be and i’ll still finish it. even more than usual, valdemar’s vaunted pluralism is a vehicle for lackey to deliver endless multi-page lectures about her incredibly confused ideology. it feels like *every* male character gets a turn to lecture Amily for being emotional and bad at her job and jumping to conclusions.

Spoiler

even though Amily, like the reader, knows exactly who the bad guy is from the beginning of the book. no one ever apologizes to her, either. they catch the guy, she’s proven right, and she single-handedly holds off 3 assassins who are only after her because of her male counterparts’ failure to listen to her hunches (direct observations and quotes from obvious villains) and take basic precautions. it’s fucking bonkers. i feel like in older lackey books, the point of this story would be “believe women” and you’d get an equally preachy but shorter and more bearable conclusion where everyone admits Amily was right and they should listen to her more in the future, and everyone respects her more as she fully takes on the role of King’s Own. instead we get Mags having that growth moment and Amily resolving to let her dad keep being King’s Own? even tho this stupid fucking subplot was established in the first book of this trilogy as a good thing bc now the king’s spymaster can focus on spying instead of having to be King’s Own too? man, fuck this book and fuck Lackey’s weird conservative liberalism.