A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.

[redbrunja]

For Darkness Shows The Stars is a sci-fi YA retelling of Persuasion, and in one sense it’s really good – I finished it in about two days – the characters are likable and the reasons why they made the choices they did are very understandable, as is their estrangement.

HOWEVER, there is this really uncomfortable pro-slavery subtext that I found pretty disturbing. Basically, the world-building sets up different castes of people, one caste of which is mentally disabled and used as the labor force, and one which is in power. Basically, the author legitimized a lot of the lies told about black people during slavery (dumber than white people, unable to be trusted to care for their children, that they like/feel loyalty to their masters) and made them literally true.

I think the author would be appalled to hear this, since a lot of the story is about breaking down this abusive power structure, but, basically, the basic world-building made me really, really uncomfortable.

But this novel did make me pick up the original Persuasion, so I'm reading that.

In other news, I'm in the middle of The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud (children fighting ghosts!) and I have a good feeling about that.

Also, reading Wednesday needs to be Reading 'Some Other Day' because I can never actually manage to post a reading update on Wednesday.

Comments

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I would be really interested in other people's opinions on this, and I'm also looking forward to Darkness, which I suspect I will enjoy more.