The Forgetting Moon

A fantastic story that I’ve read so fast despite me having little time and the book being 800 damn pages long. But let me start with what I didn't enjoy quite so much.... Almost every woman in this story is reduced to her looks. It doesn’t help that one of the main characters main attributes is her unbelievable beauty and even as a warrior-woman she’s considered to be weak - and despite her appearance ‘unwomanly’.I can kind of forgive all that, as she fights to break out of her role of being ‘just a pretty face’ with rigorous training. But still... I’ve grown exhausted of women being oppressed and objectified EVEN in a fantasy setting. It’s nothing short of unoriginal. The ubiquitous misogny is quite hard to bear once you’ve noticed it. And I’m usually not one to mind, to be honest. I can overlook these things quite easily and give them the benefit of the doubt. But at a certain point It just made me feel alienated. I can understand why many women would rather choose a different genre, something that makes them feel less... well, powerless, since this catering to almost exclusively male tastes tends to be a common occurence in epic fantasy. Otherwise this book is amazing. I wouldn’t have stuck with it if it wasn’t so good. It even beats some of the best I’ve read so far and I’ll probably pick up the rest of the series with the same vigor. Tldr: All around amazing, bloody and generally just so fun to read if you don’t mind occasionally reading about women who are just too pretty to be considered anything else.