Maia
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15
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Average rating1
Sold into slavery to the dealer Lalloc by her mother when her stepfather seduces her, the beautiful 15-year-old Maia is almost raped by Genshed, one of Lalloc's employees but is saved by Occula, a black slave girl. With no-one but Occula at her side, Maia must summon all her courage, strength and intelligence as she navigates the seedy side of the Beklan empire.
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There's nothing really wrong with this book. The prose is skilled, if not my style, the political plots are dense and well-developed, and I liked the worldbuilding and general idea. Unfortunately, Maia is my least favorite type of character: naive to the point of stupidity, beautiful, always good-hearted and beloved of everybody she meets - I found her totally boring and was hoping she would die and let Occula take over the narration, because at least she had personality beyond “yay please have sex with me oh I love you”. I've often heard this book contrasted with the Kushiel's Legacy books, of which I'm a huge fan, but aside from the god-touched sex machine thing, Maia and Phèdre have absolutely nothing in common. Frex, Phèdre has agency and is intelligent, which Maia...well.
That said, if someone doesn't mind that character archetype, I think they'd enjoy this book. So take this review with a grain of salt.
