Review: No gender balance
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 21, 2013
Overall, Mr. Day's storytelling talents are above average. He is able to create interesting scenes and move the action at just the right pace. His characters, for the most part, are believable. Although I felt that the main character was a little too young to accomplish all the things he does and he often displays a level of maturity which is difficult to associate with the age of 16.However (and this is a major flaw as far as I'm concerned), I was unpleasantly surprised by the way in which female characters are approached. Basically, there is no woman among the main characters; some appear in various minor roles and they are always, without exception, either victims of demonic mating rituals, chattel to be given as a prize for winning a competition, or buxom wenches always ready and eager for a tumble in the hay/bathtub/sack (notice how it's always in a sexual context?). There is no woman in this book who has an ounce of real strength or anything resembling a personality (maybe the princess comes almost close to being interesting, but her charm mostly gets lost between doing stupid things and fretting over a marriage she doesn't want). Personally, I wouldn't buy a book which relegates women to the role of sex objects, no matter how talented the writer may be otherwise. Creating strong female characters is definitely a challenge, one that Mr. Day should think about trying.