In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce
241 pages
Published 1984
Read from October 31 to November 6
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
It's been a while since I read Alanna: The First Adventure. Three years -- three long, tumultuous years. I can be forgiven for not remembering much at all about the original book. My partner R loves Pierce's Tortall books, though, and encouraged me to give them another go. Especially since we have them here at home, and I'm currently without a library card.
I can't compare Goddess to Alanna more directly. I can say that this volume felt a bit scattershot, an exercise in vibes rather than plot. About three years, coincidentally, breeze by for Alanna in the space of this volume, though the narrative really doesn't feel like it. Major events that feel like they should become the major thrust of the book instead get neat resolutions and on we fly to the next big thing. A war breaks out and gets resolved within a chapter and a half. The nearest thing to an overarching plot, the perfidy of Duke Roger, mostly just hovers in the background while Alanna pretty much lives her life.
In her afterward, Pierce details her struggles as a young reader trying to find any book where a straight girl is an active, ass-kicking warrior protagonist. Given how rare fantasy books about LGBTQIA+ protagonists of any description still are, it reads like a missive from a bizarre parallel universe when Pierce stresses how rare it was to find a warrior girl who liked boys in the books available during own her formative years. Especially when the much-vaunted heterosexuality here involves Alanna pushing away unwanted sexual advances from her friends but secretly wanting them, deep down. Let's just say that part didn't age well at all.
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