Carey, Jacqueline - Kushiel's Justice
Sun, Oct. 14th, 2007 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI had thought previously that my remembered fondness for Carey's first three Kushiel books were because I didn't have as much taste when I read them, or other such insulting thoughts, partially based on how meh Kushiel's Scion left me.
Nope, not true. Still love the world, still love the over-the-top epicness of it, still love the strange kindness Carey has for her characters. This book thankfully hits those points, which I feel the first book missed -- there is lots of sex and sexuality and romance, there are larger-than-life conflicts and heroism, and there are lots of moments of grace. Also, amazingly, Carey makes the love triangle central to this book work for me. I suspect it's because all the parties are aware of the love triangle, and while there are some secrets being kept, they're really not very secretive.
Imriel continues to be emo in this book, but it worked better for me because people knew he was emo and called him out on being emo. I also like Dorelei and Sidonie very much (particularly Sidonie), so that made me happy. Also, I find I have a higher tolerance for people going off and deciding that they are In Love and it cannot be stopped when a) the people actually try to stop and b) their religion is based on the tenet that people should love as they will.
The thing that really twinged me about the book was the Yeshuites. In the prior trilogy, the Yeshuites follow Yeshua bin Yosef (aka, Christ), but are very clearly modeled after Jews. It bugged me a little when I read it back then, but probably not as much as it would bug me now. In this trilogy, we find the Yeshuites have adopted the cross as their symbol and are starting to take over things with armies, and wow, it really bugged me that they were modeled on Jews (Name ben Father's Name, speaking Habiru aka Hebrew, religious leaders being called "Rebbe" and etc.).
Anyway, will continue reading because of the brain candy and Sidonie and the acceptance of different kinds of sexuality and open relationships, but yeah. It bugs me.
Nope, not true. Still love the world, still love the over-the-top epicness of it, still love the strange kindness Carey has for her characters. This book thankfully hits those points, which I feel the first book missed -- there is lots of sex and sexuality and romance, there are larger-than-life conflicts and heroism, and there are lots of moments of grace. Also, amazingly, Carey makes the love triangle central to this book work for me. I suspect it's because all the parties are aware of the love triangle, and while there are some secrets being kept, they're really not very secretive.
Imriel continues to be emo in this book, but it worked better for me because people knew he was emo and called him out on being emo. I also like Dorelei and Sidonie very much (particularly Sidonie), so that made me happy. Also, I find I have a higher tolerance for people going off and deciding that they are In Love and it cannot be stopped when a) the people actually try to stop and b) their religion is based on the tenet that people should love as they will.
The thing that really twinged me about the book was the Yeshuites. In the prior trilogy, the Yeshuites follow Yeshua bin Yosef (aka, Christ), but are very clearly modeled after Jews. It bugged me a little when I read it back then, but probably not as much as it would bug me now. In this trilogy, we find the Yeshuites have adopted the cross as their symbol and are starting to take over things with armies, and wow, it really bugged me that they were modeled on Jews (Name ben Father's Name, speaking Habiru aka Hebrew, religious leaders being called "Rebbe" and etc.).
Anyway, will continue reading because of the brain candy and Sidonie and the acceptance of different kinds of sexuality and open relationships, but yeah. It bugs me.
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Tue, Oct. 16th, 2007 02:02 am (UTC)No argument on the lack of historical accuracy, though!