Remy Rose reviewed Fortune's Wheel by Lisanne Norman (Sholan Alliance, #2)
I think I was very wrong
3 stars
Oof, about what I said in my review of book 1...
For one thing, there are A LOT of sentences like "she nodded to the young Male in the hall". Like, the author has decided to use "Male" and "Female" where one might expect "man" or "woman". I've never liked the latter convention, and the former is certainly no improvement. Also, book one claims Shola is a matriarchy, but now that we're there it seems pretty dubious. Nearly every single organization is led by a man, afaict. And oh boy are there a truly superfluous number of organizations! The women have very little agency, main character Carrie gets sedated against her will "for her own good" SO MANY TIMES. Carrie and Kusac are essentially nobility with not a lot of work to do or responsibilities, but they act so put-upon the whole time. There's like an entire legion of …
Oof, about what I said in my review of book 1...
For one thing, there are A LOT of sentences like "she nodded to the young Male in the hall". Like, the author has decided to use "Male" and "Female" where one might expect "man" or "woman". I've never liked the latter convention, and the former is certainly no improvement. Also, book one claims Shola is a matriarchy, but now that we're there it seems pretty dubious. Nearly every single organization is led by a man, afaict. And oh boy are there a truly superfluous number of organizations! The women have very little agency, main character Carrie gets sedated against her will "for her own good" SO MANY TIMES. Carrie and Kusac are essentially nobility with not a lot of work to do or responsibilities, but they act so put-upon the whole time. There's like an entire legion of bodyguards surrounding them, and they're constantly getting exempted from nearly every hardship because they're so special. There's a culture of religious extremists living in the desert who definitellllyyyy aren't a stand-in for some kinda horrible stereotype, nope! The government runs mandatory psychic indoctrination sessions that were supposed to be onboard with. And finally, it could've easily been half as long and lost nothing, because it's ridiculously repetitive!! I'm probably forgetting a bunch of complaints just because of it being so long.
There are still some interesting novel aspects that I appreciated. Psychic bonds that bend two people's very different genomes towards each other. A group of people voluntarily outcasting themselves from existing societal structures to build a better way. No polycule YET but the groundwork is laid for one.