A review by brannonkirkhuang
Exemplary Novels by Miguel de Cervantes

Did not finish book. Stopped at 47%.

While I greatly enjoyed the first few stories, I found the story about the Glass Lawyer to be simply dumb, and was then horrified to read The Novel of the Power of Blood, which is a story about a man who abducts and rapes a woman, then abandons her to find her way home to her family, abused and alone. Instantly I had a bad feeling about this story. Based on how many of the other stories tended to turn into cheesy romances, I feared that in the end, instead of punishing the man for raping her, they would justify the rape by having the two get married and fall in love. My fear was exactly correct. It was awful. A classic rape-victim-to-lovers story trope that I wish I’d never had the misfortune to read. At one point, the man’s mom showed a picture of an ugly woman to her son and told him she’s chosen her to be his bride and he responded, “I don’t want a noble, intelligent, rich, or wise woman because I already have all that stuff in me. I just want a beautiful girl.” He was a pig from start to finish, but somehow his rape was justified because he married the girl just because he found her beautiful - that’s all his feelings of love were based on. I’m sorry, but of course these stories are from the sixteen hundreds and of course the author is Catholic, and holy shit, sure, that explains this bullshit, but it doesn’t justify it. I don’t think I can read any more of this just because of how awful that story was.