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A review by neighborhoodbeanreads
Silk Fire by Zabé Ellor
Did not finish book. Stopped at 27%.
This review is long overdue, I really needed to marinate in my thoughts before putting together the review. I DNF’d this book at the 20% mark. There were a lot of issues, right from the beginning, both in terms of world building and when it came to handling diversity in the book. This book relies heavily on the exploitation of orientalism; Asian motif’s and language are seen throughout the book in its basis and even in promotion kf the novel, its likness to Asian cultures used more so as an aesthetic than with respect to the fact these cultures belong to real-live people. This was present as well in the naming structure.
In terms of the books world building, there was way too much going on. We had dragons, dinosaurs and scifi technology elements which made the premise of the story hard to fathom. Way too much happens without the necessary foundational elements or world building in place.
I was really excited to read a novel with a focus on queerness and one with a matriarchy, something I’ve seen done beautifully in other novels and enjoyed, but the research on existing matriarchies (which are seen more often in non-western countries) was lacking and the representation felt hollow. There isn’t really a foundation of why the mattiarchy in this book is similar to the patriarchy in our world besides word-for-word copy and pasting rhetoric used against women flipped onto men. There seemed to be no foundation, at least from what I’ve read, where the power imbalance comes from— like we see in modern day patriarchal structures. It felt much more “women are mean to men too!!!”. You cannot simply copy/paste oppression without tweaking it past how it functions in our world. It reads as lazy and can be harmful. Unfortunately, when these concerns were brought up with the author after the books release, they doubled down. Refusing to take this criticism, Zabe instead told readers that we just can’t accept the fact women are abuse men too.
There was also some unfortunate TERF-like language and ideas embedded in the story, which was frustrating since the author himself is trans. I’m not sure if it is internalized misogyny or what, but it was nevertheless present. Example: the main character’s aunt transition from male to female and it is alluded to that they did so to get the perks of being a woman and the privilege that comes with in their society (TERF rhetoric).
Side note: I also didn’t appreciate the way sex work was portrayed or how often there were instances of dubcon. It felt like it was just shock value or trauma porn.
In terms of the books world building, there was way too much going on. We had dragons, dinosaurs and scifi technology elements which made the premise of the story hard to fathom. Way too much happens without the necessary foundational elements or world building in place.
I was really excited to read a novel with a focus on queerness and one with a matriarchy, something I’ve seen done beautifully in other novels and enjoyed, but the research on existing matriarchies (which are seen more often in non-western countries) was lacking and the representation felt hollow. There isn’t really a foundation of why the mattiarchy in this book is similar to the patriarchy in our world besides word-for-word copy and pasting rhetoric used against women flipped onto men. There seemed to be no foundation, at least from what I’ve read, where the power imbalance comes from— like we see in modern day patriarchal structures. It felt much more “women are mean to men too!!!”. You cannot simply copy/paste oppression without tweaking it past how it functions in our world. It reads as lazy and can be harmful. Unfortunately, when these concerns were brought up with the author after the books release, they doubled down. Refusing to take this criticism, Zabe instead told readers that we just can’t accept the fact women are abuse men too.
There was also some unfortunate TERF-like language and ideas embedded in the story, which was frustrating since the author himself is trans. I’m not sure if it is internalized misogyny or what, but it was nevertheless present. Example: the main character’s aunt transition from male to female and it is alluded to that they did so to get the perks of being a woman and the privilege that comes with in their society (TERF rhetoric).
Side note: I also didn’t appreciate the way sex work was portrayed or how often there were instances of dubcon. It felt like it was just shock value or trauma porn.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexism, Cultural appropriation, and Misogyny