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A review by rebeccacider
The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner
5.0
I may have enjoyed this even more than Swordspoint! This is an ambitious coming-of-age novel, extremely well-told and emotionally honest. And, as a rule of thumb, any book that reminds me of Jane Austen in one chapter and Jean Genet in the next is probably worth reading.
Reread: Bumped up to five stars. Damn I love this book. Katherine is one of the most psychologically realistic teenager characters I've read, and this book does a better job of evoking adolescence than many young adult novels. This is a story about inhabiting fictional worlds and finding yourself in them, about bored teenagers loitering around town and spying on strangers, about piecing together an identity from the different faces adults expect you to show to the world. Oh, and there's Richard and Alec being insufferable as usual.
Reread: Bumped up to five stars. Damn I love this book. Katherine is one of the most psychologically realistic teenager characters I've read, and this book does a better job of evoking adolescence than many young adult novels. This is a story about inhabiting fictional worlds and finding yourself in them, about bored teenagers loitering around town and spying on strangers, about piecing together an identity from the different faces adults expect you to show to the world. Oh, and there's Richard and Alec being insufferable as usual.