Tuesday, December 20, 2022

2022 book 226

 Rachel Neumeier’s As Shadow, A Light

An action-packed finale to the main trilogy in this series—wars, outlaws, prison breaks, etc. I do like the author's sense of humor. There is some business in this one where one of the main characters—the sassy twenty-two year old, who gets to use her martial arts skills quite a bit—dyes her fair skin and blonde hair to better blend in with the locals, and that gave me a little bit of pause. Is that blackface? Can you have blackface in a fantasy world where it has no social/cultural context? She is also threatened with rape a couple times, but see aforementioned martial arts skills. Her dad is also a POV character and undergoes what amounts to psychological torture, so this in general is a little darker than the first two. But balanced with moments of lightness. B+.

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