Book Anti-rec: Duainfey by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

[jumpuphigh]

I finished Duainfey by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller last night. I have really enjoyed their Liaden Universe books as well as Sharon Lee's Carousal Tides so I am trying very, very hard to keep Duainfey from causing me to take back every single positive thing I said about them. However, it is very hard.

For most of the book, this narrative jumps between three separate stories. Yes, the stories do eventually start to come together in the last few pages but it was quite disconcerting. Then, for the second half of the book, one of those stories is a woman being raped over and over in more horrible and violent ways each time. It was all from her perspective and every time she starts to claim her own power, her agency was removed by an external force in more and more horrible ways. It was nauseating and grotesque and horrifying. I forced myself to finish it only to discover that they decided to do that "to be cont'd" type of ending a story instead of, you know, actually ending the story.

So, no, I don't recommend this book. I'm not sure I'll be reccing any of their other books in the future because of it as well.