Outside of a Dog: Pierce, Tamora: (209) The Will of the Empress

Rachel Brown

Rachel Brown wrote on September 25, 2005 at 10:27 PM:

I assumed that forced marriage did include rape, but that Pierce wasn't going to get into the details because it was YA.

Kate

Kate wrote on September 25, 2005 at 10:34 PM:

Rachel: Well, it's still rape after they sign, of course, but that Sandry never fears violence at all struck me as odd. Mind, this might have been more obvious to me because I'd heard her talk about it at Boskone.

berble

berble wrote on October 21, 2005 at 12:53 AM:

I thought that Sandry was less concerned with physical violation because she assumes she can protect herself, unlike some of the other women in the book.

On Daja; to be honest I had always picked Sandry as the lesbian character, but I had no problem with it being Daja. I'm just so thrilled T.Pierce has made a central character a lesbian in a YA world. For all lesbians just now growing up this can only be a fantastic thing.

Kate

Kate wrote on October 21, 2005 at 10:23 AM:

berble, I'd have to go back and look to be sure, but I thought Sandry didn't think of it at *all*, even when her ability to protect her herself is placed in question. Ah well.

It'll be interesting to see if Pierce does any of the other three's first loves on-stage, or has any of them settle down permanently.

Kate

Kate wrote on September 21, 2007 at 9:38 PM:

The audiobook of this is also good, with a couple of caveats:

1) The actresses for Tris and Daja sounded more similar than I expected, which gave me a bit of trouble.

2) The bits where they squabble and are distant seem a lot longer out loud.