soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2020-06-13 04:37 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2020-06-13 04:37 pm
Minor Mage, by T Kingfisher
More Hugos! More middle-grade in the YA category!
And oh dear, this book is....upsetting, to me. At least unlike Dragon Pearl this one agrees with me that it's not right for a 12 year old kid to have to shoulder so much responsibility? But the kid (Oliver) has to anyway, and over the course of Minor Mage he faces a lot more really awful stuff than Min did in Dragon Pearl. It was not fun for me to read about.
Kingfisher has said that a lot of people tell her this is NOT a kids book even though she thinks it is, and you know, I actually think I'm on Kingfisher's side here. It might not be the right book for all kids, but I can imagine there are some who would get along with this sort of thing. But I'm just the wrong audience for this book at any age.
There's still elements in this book that I really enjoy, like how obvious it is that the person who wrote this book knows things about plants and cares about them, and the ghost in the woods, and the armadillo. And I'm fascinated by the Cloud Herders and want to know more about them!
Back when Minor Mage first came out I decided not to read it despite being a fan of the author because I heard it involves cannibalism, a major squick of mine. But then here it is on the Hugos list and I couldn't resist giving it a try after all. And turns out the thing I was worried about actually didn't bother me because it was a nonhuman creature eating humans, not another human, so it didn't trip my squick. Cross-species people-eating: not actually cannibalism, even if it's still horrible! But the overall experience of reading this book was just stressful and sad for me. I think it would have been fine for me if the main character was older? But Oliver's just a kid and knows all of 3 spells and has nobody but an armadillo to help him and the mage who taught him didn't do a very good job and his entire village forced him to go on this quest even though he's so young and it's not cool. Even though Oliver succeeds in his goals in the end and so it's technically a happy ending, the getting there is hard and scary and I don't like it.
And oh dear, this book is....upsetting, to me. At least unlike Dragon Pearl this one agrees with me that it's not right for a 12 year old kid to have to shoulder so much responsibility? But the kid (Oliver) has to anyway, and over the course of Minor Mage he faces a lot more really awful stuff than Min did in Dragon Pearl. It was not fun for me to read about.
Kingfisher has said that a lot of people tell her this is NOT a kids book even though she thinks it is, and you know, I actually think I'm on Kingfisher's side here. It might not be the right book for all kids, but I can imagine there are some who would get along with this sort of thing. But I'm just the wrong audience for this book at any age.
There's still elements in this book that I really enjoy, like how obvious it is that the person who wrote this book knows things about plants and cares about them, and the ghost in the woods, and the armadillo. And I'm fascinated by the Cloud Herders and want to know more about them!
Back when Minor Mage first came out I decided not to read it despite being a fan of the author because I heard it involves cannibalism, a major squick of mine. But then here it is on the Hugos list and I couldn't resist giving it a try after all. And turns out the thing I was worried about actually didn't bother me because it was a nonhuman creature eating humans, not another human, so it didn't trip my squick. Cross-species people-eating: not actually cannibalism, even if it's still horrible! But the overall experience of reading this book was just stressful and sad for me. I think it would have been fine for me if the main character was older? But Oliver's just a kid and knows all of 3 spells and has nobody but an armadillo to help him and the mage who taught him didn't do a very good job and his entire village forced him to go on this quest even though he's so young and it's not cool. Even though Oliver succeeds in his goals in the end and so it's technically a happy ending, the getting there is hard and scary and I don't like it.