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A review by gabrielleragusi
The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley
4.0
This is one of my absolute favourite books. I first read it years ago after the Avalon series and I fell in love with it.
As in all the author's books, there's a theme of violence and abuse that I absolutely hate, but the writing is undeniably good and the amount of research is evident in The Firebrand.
When I talk about Marion Zimmer Bradley's books, I always end up talking about the negative (how can I not, I fell in love with her books when I was in middle school, I was obsessed, and then I felt... betrayed? I was certainly disappointed), but to this day I still adore her writing and the structure of her stories.
But here's the negative.
The characters are human and inhuman at first, but each one of them tends to become a stereotype by the end of the book. They're also inconsistent and have the tendency to appear and disappear at random.
The book is based on feminism, or at least a very distorted concept of it. In my opinion, this is not feminism. Kassandra isn't an independent strong woman, she's quite the opposite to the very end. Her desire to worship someone, a God or a man, doesn't go away. She continuously changes her mind about this. Although she's somewhat strong by the end (she's been through some shit), she isn't independent.
The timeline could have been better. There are small and large skips.
In general, there are inconsistencies throughout the book and this may cause confusion.
But! I'm giving this book four stars because it's one of my favourites. I studied history in Uni because of MZB's books and the Firebrand in particular (then I dropped out to pursue something else), and her work is still very important to me.
As in all the author's books, there's a theme of violence and abuse that I absolutely hate, but the writing is undeniably good and the amount of research is evident in The Firebrand.
When I talk about Marion Zimmer Bradley's books, I always end up talking about the negative (how can I not, I fell in love with her books when I was in middle school, I was obsessed, and then I felt... betrayed? I was certainly disappointed), but to this day I still adore her writing and the structure of her stories.
But here's the negative.
The characters are human and inhuman at first, but each one of them tends to become a stereotype by the end of the book. They're also inconsistent and have the tendency to appear and disappear at random.
The book is based on feminism, or at least a very distorted concept of it. In my opinion, this is not feminism. Kassandra isn't an independent strong woman, she's quite the opposite to the very end. Her desire to worship someone, a God or a man, doesn't go away. She continuously changes her mind about this. Although she's somewhat strong by the end (she's been through some shit), she isn't independent.
The timeline could have been better. There are small and large skips.
In general, there are inconsistencies throughout the book and this may cause confusion.
But! I'm giving this book four stars because it's one of my favourites. I studied history in Uni because of MZB's books and the Firebrand in particular (then I dropped out to pursue something else), and her work is still very important to me.