The Queen of the Tearling

Nearly four years ago I added The Queen of the Tearling to my to read shelf. I have no memory of where the recommendation came from, be it r/fantasy, a promotional panel at Indigo, or through a Goodreads list. Whatever the source I'm pleased that a simple click of "want to read" finally resulted in me reading the book.

The first book in a trilogy has typical formulas and beats to make. Johansen doesn't do anything unique, you get dropped in to a similar but unfamiliar world as the protagonist is thrust forward in to a situation they are not yet ready to embrace. What makes the journey with Kelsea enjoyable is that she has compassion, a moral compass but also the willingness to murder when it's necessary.

The reviews on the book seem polarizing. There are a few critical reviews that I agree with and point out problems I didn't acknowledge or see (like this one). I feel that the criticism is warranted and won't disagree with them, but I enjoyed the book and will happily continue with the series.

I do have a few other thoughts on the story though...

This is low fantasy but it's not. There are references to historical literature (Shakespear, Rowling), America but the world of Tearling is not similar. There are location references to New Dover and New London but Fairwitch Sea, Tearling Gulf and Cadare are new.

It wasn't until the end of the book that I looked at the map and it didn't help, I don't know where this world is. There was a crossing from America...to somewhere? This isn't information necessary to follow the story but at what time did the crossing happen, 1900's, 2000's? There are references to methods and manufacturing that are lost but expected to be relearned.

Unless something from our current world has value or use in the story I'm not sure there is a benefit to setting the story in a semi-fictional universe. I found that I was trying to decipher clues and understand where the story took place instead of focusing on the story itself.

Those are my minor gripes but not enough to stop reading. Onward and upward to Invasion of the Tearing.

Review is not too spoilery, but does discuss themes.

Verdict: fast easy read, not too challenging, but more than a little frustrating.

I have so many mixed feelings about this book. The themes of the book are bad leadership, the rot of society, self sacrifice, and the high cost of making the best decisions as a leader. I really enjoyed that. The execution of the book involves our main character being awesome but also getting a crush on someone who’s just kidnapped her, being obsessed with being plain, and criticizing people who are old, fat, ugly, or disabled. I really didn't enjoy that.

Initial Impressions: Very enjoyable. The main character is a good balance of innocent raised in the woods and young woman groomed to be Queen. She comes off as a strong spirit well trained in tactics and governing but kept innocent of court behavior. The action starts right away and the reaction of the guards sent to fetch her back to her destiny is intriguing. What isn’t intriguing is how much the main character is kept in the dark by absolutely everybody. Apparently her mother made everyone swear an oath that they were not allowed to tell her shit. She is supposed to rule this land and she doesn’t even know the most basic or important things about the current status of her country.

The world building is enjoyable: this isn’t just generic fantasy world, it is in our future. The characters may ride horses and live in castles but they know about antibiotics and genetics. They 'crossed' to this world at some point in the past seeking to make a utopia. They think they’re on some land-mass which appeared suddenly on earth, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out they actually traveled to different planet or this is a computer sim. We don’t find out this book. Settlement making being hard and dangerous, they've backslid, largely loosing much of the technical know-how they came with.

Then we meet the love interest and Second Impressions kick in.

Second Impression: So disappointing. Their whole interaction is a horrible lesson for the audience - man kidnaps Heir Apparent, won’t tell her his name (he goes by a self made title ‘The Fetch’), calls her 'girl' all the time, tells her he will decide if she is worthy to lives and if not will kill her, and SHE GETS A CRUSH ON HIM? He is using Redpilll negging tactics on her and they work. VERY UPSETTING. Fortunately there is little further development on that front in book one, and our heroine doesn’t let a crush distract her long although her puppyish worship and insecurity at the thought of him throughout the novel made me grit my teeth every time his name was mentioned.

The introduction of the book's main antagonist, the Red Queen, was both interesting AND disappointing.

On the plus side:
+ Always up for a strong female antagonist!
+ As Red Queen is a big mystery to the protagonist this POV is a useful insight into her motivations

On the minus side:
- The evil Red Queen is very sexual in every evil sex tropy way imaginable. The sex isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that every time we see her she is sex+evil. The first time we meet her the Red Queen in bed with a sex slave and ends up sending him off to be maimed b/c he snores.

Again- very upsetting. Sex = evil has been screwing people up for centuries, we don't need it again now. Especially when there is no plot in the book which requires it - the writer just shows us in scene after scene that only evil people exhibit sexual desire. The protagonists exhibit only love, romantic or familial, and are otherwise perfectly chaste. Another seriously disturbing lesson for the readers. Looking at my notes I am horrified to see the only women with sexual agency in the book are linked with cruelty and inhumanity. All the 'good' women who’ve actually had sex appear to have been raped or beaten by their sex partners.

Which leads me to the very disappointing treatment of evil in general. While the ‘good’ characters have dimension and occasionally surprise, the antagonists are lazily constructed and present problems from what I hope is just thoughtless writing and not an actual worldview.

In the world of the Queen of the Tearling, evil is obvious - antagonists are fat, sexually sadistic, spend too much time on their hair, casually maim people, exhibit albinism, have prematurely grey hair or if nothing else, are skinny and unintelligent and weak looking. Oh, and don't want children. None of the Antagonists want kids, a special point of this is made a few times. Childfree = evil. It all amounts to an old fashioned notion that evil presents as evil, that your nature is printed somehow on your skin or personality for everyone to see.

Good people, meanwhile, are pretty. Or at worst plain. From the moment we meet the queens guards the main character mentions that all of her mothers guards were clearly chosen for their good looks as well as their skill. They may have scars or sad eyes but they are ‘normal’. The main character actually thinks to herself at one point that the saddest thing she can think of is being ugly and not knowing it.

These flaws are really a shame because the rest of the book examines the difficulty of doing the right thing even when you know what that is, and how easy it is to be drawn down a path paved in best intentions. When it really counts, the main character is strong, kind, just, and wise, and has possibly the most bad-ass coronation in any book I've read in the last ten years.