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ghost_queens 's review for:
Kushiel's Dart
by Jacqueline Carey
2.5 - ⭐️ - spoiler free review
Reviewing Kushiel’s Dart is tough. I read this for book club, and by the law of book club, I had to finish it. I would have never picked up Kushiel’s Dart on my own, and if I had, I probably would have DNF'd it pretty quickly.
It’s also difficult to pin down because I don't think it knows the story it’s trying to tell. And to make matters worse, everyone keeps calling this a "romantasy" book. It’s not that. It’s also not a feminist slam dunk, nor is it a reskinned A Song of Ice and Fire. For better or worse, nothing else is quite like Kushiel’s Dart.
Briefly, Kushiel’s Dart follows Phèdre as she learns the art of a Servant of Naamah, a revered sex worker within this world, while also gathering information from her noble clientele. I can wrap my head around this—but it’s when I mention that Phèdre is marked with Kushiel’s Dart, a red mote in her eye that cosmically destines her to be aroused by pain, that the wheels start to fall off the wagon.
The sex scenes were clinical and verbose, often unnecessary, and never fun. The BDSM element wasn’t what bothered me—it was that everything felt utterly joyless. Phèdre doesn’t always like what’s being done to her, but because of Kushiel’s Dart (remember, she’s marked by God to be a masochist), she can’t help but seek out these dark pleasures.
People can enjoy kinky sex without being God’s chosen Freak™️. In fact, Phèdre interacts with many who do. So, the whole "Dart" concept felt clunky. It seems like it's mainly there to make Phèdre "special" in this world, because otherwise, I don’t think she’d be in high demand based on her personality alone.
If the main character is kind of boring, and the sex scenes are boring, then the world has got to be good, right? Nah. Don’t expect much of Kushiel’s Dart to make sense. It takes place in what is ostensibly our world, but with a canon divergence after Jesus’s (yes, that Jesus) crucifixion.
Any time an area was named, you could immediately figure out its real-world equivalent. It often felt like we couldn’t escape the uncanny valley; the Skaldi don’t worship Odin, they worship Odihnn, and somehow that’s different?
I think the novel would have been stronger if a completely new world had been created, or if we’d pulled back from the fantasy elements and just made regular Judeo-Christian religion hornier, if that’s what the author was aiming for.
The fantasy face-lift does a disservice to the real-world groups she tries to drag-and-drop into this setting. Jewish people (Yeshuaites) just speak Hebrew, but in this world, it’s almost presented as if it’s some conlang like Dothraki.
Beyond that, we exist solely in Phèdre’s mind as the narrator. Terre d’Ange was settled by angels, and the D’Angeline people carry the blood of angels… so we get some pretty long diatribes from our narrator about how they’re essentially the superior race.
Luckily, I don’t feel the need to continue past the first book. In some ways, I’m glad I read it along with friends. It wasn’t all bad—there were things I enjoyed—but there was never enough of them, and they were buried beneath pages of exposition delivered in excruciating detail, none of which ever felt relevant.
If you read the description and it still sounds like your type of story—it might be! There is a cult following around this series, so clearly people are seeing something in it that I’m not.
I just don’t think I could read another word without feeling like an Anguisette.
Reviewing Kushiel’s Dart is tough. I read this for book club, and by the law of book club, I had to finish it. I would have never picked up Kushiel’s Dart on my own, and if I had, I probably would have DNF'd it pretty quickly.
It’s also difficult to pin down because I don't think it knows the story it’s trying to tell. And to make matters worse, everyone keeps calling this a "romantasy" book. It’s not that. It’s also not a feminist slam dunk, nor is it a reskinned A Song of Ice and Fire. For better or worse, nothing else is quite like Kushiel’s Dart.
Briefly, Kushiel’s Dart follows Phèdre as she learns the art of a Servant of Naamah, a revered sex worker within this world, while also gathering information from her noble clientele. I can wrap my head around this—but it’s when I mention that Phèdre is marked with Kushiel’s Dart, a red mote in her eye that cosmically destines her to be aroused by pain, that the wheels start to fall off the wagon.
The sex scenes were clinical and verbose, often unnecessary, and never fun. The BDSM element wasn’t what bothered me—it was that everything felt utterly joyless. Phèdre doesn’t always like what’s being done to her, but because of Kushiel’s Dart (remember, she’s marked by God to be a masochist), she can’t help but seek out these dark pleasures.
People can enjoy kinky sex without being God’s chosen Freak™️. In fact, Phèdre interacts with many who do. So, the whole "Dart" concept felt clunky. It seems like it's mainly there to make Phèdre "special" in this world, because otherwise, I don’t think she’d be in high demand based on her personality alone.
If the main character is kind of boring, and the sex scenes are boring, then the world has got to be good, right? Nah. Don’t expect much of Kushiel’s Dart to make sense. It takes place in what is ostensibly our world, but with a canon divergence after Jesus’s (yes, that Jesus) crucifixion.
Any time an area was named, you could immediately figure out its real-world equivalent. It often felt like we couldn’t escape the uncanny valley; the Skaldi don’t worship Odin, they worship Odihnn, and somehow that’s different?
I think the novel would have been stronger if a completely new world had been created, or if we’d pulled back from the fantasy elements and just made regular Judeo-Christian religion hornier, if that’s what the author was aiming for.
The fantasy face-lift does a disservice to the real-world groups she tries to drag-and-drop into this setting. Jewish people (Yeshuaites) just speak Hebrew, but in this world, it’s almost presented as if it’s some conlang like Dothraki.
Beyond that, we exist solely in Phèdre’s mind as the narrator. Terre d’Ange was settled by angels, and the D’Angeline people carry the blood of angels… so we get some pretty long diatribes from our narrator about how they’re essentially the superior race.
Luckily, I don’t feel the need to continue past the first book. In some ways, I’m glad I read it along with friends. It wasn’t all bad—there were things I enjoyed—but there was never enough of them, and they were buried beneath pages of exposition delivered in excruciating detail, none of which ever felt relevant.
If you read the description and it still sounds like your type of story—it might be! There is a cult following around this series, so clearly people are seeing something in it that I’m not.
I just don’t think I could read another word without feeling like an Anguisette.