This blog isn’t widely read in any sense, so I figured why not review some equally unknown books. If you are looking for a unflinching review of Our Bloody Pearl you have come to the right place.
Like all sophisticated book reviews, this one pretends to answer the question “is it a good book?”, while instead pushing the critic’s sociopolitical agenda. Maybe it would be simpler to just give a binary “yes its good” or “no it isn’t”, but as it turns out, “good” is on a spectrum.
Now I realize that if you’ve heard of D N Bryn there’s a good chance you’ve already drank the “gender fluid” in which case I dare you to read this review.
So here it goes. Hang on to your hats me hearties.
**** three years pass ****
Ok well it turned out I lost interest and forgot about it. Honestly, I was disappointed by the book. I was hoping for something dripping in heavy handed social-justice political subtext which I could bash in a review (like my review of Ancillary Justice), however I was sorely mistaken, and the rhetorical swashbuckling was thwarted.
It’s just a feel-good story about a mermaid, ahem, siren, girl who pretends (thinks?) she isn’t just a girl (she’s, ahem they, are non-binary which is what that means) having a platonic relationship with a guy she friend zoned (but also he’s a human and she’s a fish) and eventually taking revenge on a pirate who physically (not sexually mind you, she’s a fish) abused her by keeping her platonically chained in a bathtub.
It’s not especially striking, violent, wholesome, happy, sad, adventurous, chilling, scandalous, gritty or anything really.
It’s a safe, not too boring, Mary-Sue story, which hits all the emotional notes just so… so that it really wouldn’t (couldn’t?) ever have been written by anyone who wasn’t a womyn born womyn.
Not that its bad, mind you. I did enjoy it.
Oh well. I guess this scathing review wasn’t meant to be. Until next time, ya scallywags.
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