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A review by vermidian
Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede
Did not finish book. Stopped at 19%.
So I got about 20% of the way through the book and was kind of non-plussed about it. There really wasn't much action and the world was just a little meh in terms of anything actually interesting happening. The characters were pretty flat in general, but not unlikeable. They just weren't all that developed. I think it was finally starting to get somewhere when I decided to go google something about the book.
Where are the native Americans?
It turns out the author thought it was too inconvenient to write indigenous Americans into her story, so she wrote them out entirely. Among her quotes are things like wanting to avoid negative tropes, and something akin to "Well, the world I created would have been too wild to have been settled back in those days in that area." That's just a lazy excuse for a white woman saying that she didn't want to have to deal with what white settlers, which her protagonists very much are, did to the indigenous populations back in those days. I hope she eventually is capable of apologizing to the indigenous communities.
I absolutely will not be finishing this book. Nor will I be reading on in the books. I really loved Dealing with Dragons and that series, but you don't just eliminate a race of people and call it good. That's one more off my TBR.
Where are the native Americans?
It turns out the author thought it was too inconvenient to write indigenous Americans into her story, so she wrote them out entirely. Among her quotes are things like wanting to avoid negative tropes, and something akin to "Well, the world I created would have been too wild to have been settled back in those days in that area." That's just a lazy excuse for a white woman saying that she didn't want to have to deal with what white settlers, which her protagonists very much are, did to the indigenous populations back in those days. I hope she eventually is capable of apologizing to the indigenous communities.
I absolutely will not be finishing this book. Nor will I be reading on in the books. I really loved Dealing with Dragons and that series, but you don't just eliminate a race of people and call it good. That's one more off my TBR.