Review: Mixed feelings
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 7, 2012
*Spoilers throughout*Circe is not having a good day when she suddenly wakes up, no longer in her nice comfy bed in Seattle, but in a strange land where no almost one speaks her language and before she really even processes what is going on she is hunted down and raped by the man who just became her husband.It's been a long time I have been so conflicted about writing a review for a book because the book is for the most part quite entertaining, but there are so many flaws that I can't in good conscious recommend it. At first I was really intrigued about this new world and these warriors Circe meets, espeically her husband, Lahn, and also about what exactly the golden dynasty is and what importance it has.  But the problem is that the writing is so stilted, with pages and pages going to describe Circe's outfits, hair, jewelry, and sex life in detail that much of the "meat of the story" is glossed over.  Her husband hits her, rapes her 7 times, if I remember correctly, and imprisons her and I won't even get into his questionable fidelity (although he is faithful after she makes a point of it before that he may or maybe not have gone to the communal slave-whores), but these things are described with about as much detail as you would tell a stranger about a trip to the gynecologist. It is all glossed over and all we ever see of his is this perfect man.  The story has so many dark and serious issues and none of them are seriously talked about or addressed, except with the other wives giving Circe hints about how to keep her husband from raping other women by wearing him down sexually and to understand that he only hit you because he was really angry.  But because the story was handled in such a breezy way all the violence seemed too graphic and out of place and no only that but I didn't care that these bad things happened to the heroine because none of her pain and suffering was described, but all her emotional pain and suffering is glorified in detail.  The whole tone of the book was off because of the content.  This content is just plan too dark to make a light book and the author was not willing to add much more than a handful of pages that weren't as light as cotton candy.Not only that, but what really got me was the plot.  There basically is no plot what so ever.  Episodic things happen, but with no rising acting, no climax and no conclusion, well other than the inevitable happily ever after for the couple.  Despite this books substantial length there is no plot at all outside of the relationship between Circe and Lahn and the various episodic things that happen to them.  The idea of the golden dynasty in the end came to nothing.  Nothing changed in the world, nothing changed in the characters, there were still slaves at the end, but because Circe calls them "her girls" and buys them clothes suddenly they are happy to be slaves.  "The posse," Circe's group of women friends are still basically little better than play things with nothing even close to human rights, being a man is not allow to interfere with another man's private business even if he is watching him cut his wife's throat. But because most of the women are happy and their husbands stopped raping them nightly and now make love to them there are no more problems in the world.What really boggles the mind is the character of Lahn who is supposed to be very smart, sweet, considerate and a good husband but he refused to stop RAPING other women when he goes out raiding because that is his way.  How can you be even remotely civilized yet think rape is ok?  Yet, Circe gets Lahn to stop after promising to never ask anything of him again, yet all his other men still go out raping, pillaging and murdering but in her mind everything is ok.The reason I am complaining so much is that because nothing changed, because the only thing that really honestly happened in the book is that these two feel in love and he managed to begrudgingly vow to sleep with no one else.  Even though they are heralding in this golden dynasty nothing is different, and the book just seemed to drag as the same problems came up over and over again, those being that she is over emotional and does irrational things without thinking and he only thinks of the sacrifices he is making towards her, that being fidelity, and him thinking she gives up nothing, while she gave up her entire life in her world to stay with him.By the end I was annoyed at the lack of progress but many parts are quite entertaining.  The writing is not terrible, but I would suggest anyone thinking of getting this book to read the sample because the who book is written in the first person and with all kinds of odd asides and random things thrown in but once I got used to the writing style it was ok, but Shakespeare it's not.2 1/2 stars.