2013 book 74

Margaret Wrinkle's Wash
I need to stop reading depressing literary books just because I think I SHOULD be reading books like that, instead of, say, mysteries set in bakeries. But I mean, reading books and blogging about them shouldn't feel like doing homework, and clearly that's just not where my head is these days. On the other hand, this is a novel about a slave being used by his owner as part of a slave breeding program (he's a sire, like a horse, is the deal)(I cannot bold or italicize that enough), so this is kind of an extreme case. I honestly started this twice before actually plowing through b/c I just didn't want to deal with the subject matter--it's very hard to read (if you've never noticed before, "hard to read" is my blog code for "has rape or otherwise unpleasant/unwanted sexual contact," because obviously in a novel about slavery, there's plenty of that to be had, and this one doesn't shy away from it).

Anyway.

This is a very well-written novel (though I don't know why Wrinkle switches from first to third person narration all the time, even in a novel with multiple perspectives), worth the acclaim, etc. There are some nice parts--the titular slave Wash's relationship with his mother, and with his love interest, a healer named for Pallas Athena (she's even grey-eyed), are both very moving. Wrinkle is a bit heavy-handed with the whole sex/power thing, and the whole power of stories thing, and I could have done with way less of the slave owner's viewpoint. I mean, I don't care what war experiences he has, or his family or business troubles, I am never going to sympathize with a fictional guy running a slave breeding program, and I resent having to read so many of his thoughts.

How do you rate a book that you recognize is a GOOD novel, even if you didn't enjoy reading it? B?