soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2012-11-17 12:11 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2012-11-17 12:11 pm
Vigilant, by James Alan Gardner
Okay here is a book review of a book I just finished yesterday! Even though I still have a backlog of previously-read books to post about! Because WOW. This book: WAY MORE QUEER THAN I REMEMBER IT BEING. And TEXTUALLY queer, even! I was such an oblivious teenager.
So Vigilant is 100% textually doing a Festina/Faye thing and I NEVER NOTICED despite how much I loved this series and this book when I was a teen. Well I am making up for lost time and shipping them SO HARD now oh gosh SO MANY FEELS. (also I ship Faye/her spouses a LOT but that one at least is not news to me.)
When I last read this book I did notice the bit at the very end where Faye asks Festina to join her group-marriage, but I was always kind of confused about it, because I interpreted it as...what...Faye asking a woman she was only recently friends with to join her marriage because she felt sorry for how lonely Festina was? It made no sense to me!
But no, upon reread this week I discovered that the two women are into each other a LOT. And now the ending scene with the marriage proposal and the refusal is SO MUCH MORE MEANINGFUL. It's, like, ACTUALLY A SUPER GOOD ENDING and totally the right one for the book! I understand everything now! And am heartbroken over Festina going off to keep doing her lone hero thing without a family, sob.
I'm so proud of Faye, though, for the maturing she does over the course of the book, and ugh, her FAMILYYYYYYYY they are so supportive of her! There were only a few people in Sallysweet River she liked and SHE MARRIED ALL OF THEM and it is the best. And Festina deserves the best too!
(also yes I super love the worldbuilding and the other characters and Gardner's brilliant-as-always first-person-POV skilz and THE VIGIL CAN'T WE HAVE A VIGIL PLEASE and all that but again: not news to me. I AM JUST BUSY BEING BLOWN AWAY BY SHIPPY FEELS OVER FAYE/FESTINA)
So Vigilant is 100% textually doing a Festina/Faye thing and I NEVER NOTICED despite how much I loved this series and this book when I was a teen. Well I am making up for lost time and shipping them SO HARD now oh gosh SO MANY FEELS. (also I ship Faye/her spouses a LOT but that one at least is not news to me.)
When I last read this book I did notice the bit at the very end where Faye asks Festina to join her group-marriage, but I was always kind of confused about it, because I interpreted it as...what...Faye asking a woman she was only recently friends with to join her marriage because she felt sorry for how lonely Festina was? It made no sense to me!
But no, upon reread this week I discovered that the two women are into each other a LOT. And now the ending scene with the marriage proposal and the refusal is SO MUCH MORE MEANINGFUL. It's, like, ACTUALLY A SUPER GOOD ENDING and totally the right one for the book! I understand everything now! And am heartbroken over Festina going off to keep doing her lone hero thing without a family, sob.
I'm so proud of Faye, though, for the maturing she does over the course of the book, and ugh, her FAMILYYYYYYYY they are so supportive of her! There were only a few people in Sallysweet River she liked and SHE MARRIED ALL OF THEM and it is the best. And Festina deserves the best too!
(also yes I super love the worldbuilding and the other characters and Gardner's brilliant-as-always first-person-POV skilz and THE VIGIL CAN'T WE HAVE A VIGIL PLEASE and all that but again: not news to me. I AM JUST BUSY BEING BLOWN AWAY BY SHIPPY FEELS OVER FAYE/FESTINA)