Sorcerer to the Crown

3.5 While I'm into Manglish, it's a dragging chore to wade through stilted, pompous fantasy-speak. On top of that, referring to the female of the species so insistently is eminently irritating. It's hard to stomach fantasy when one creates a world of dragons and fairies and magic, but then replicates the same oppressions. It's unfair when Prunella is to be lumped with the servants or thought a strumpet, not because she questions class structures, patriarchal control, religious hypocrisy, imperialism, etc., but because she's not one of them. Having two protagonists of colour alone (although it's mentioned multiple times how light-skinned Prunella is and how she can pass by candlelight) isn't enough to overturn this genre. Is it mandatory for fantasy characters to be Mary Sues? Why does the omniscient narrator have to be racist and sexist too? I'll still read book two though.