Sparrow

Prostitution in the later part of the Roman Empire in the southern part of modern day Spain. This is an area/part of history that I am completely unfamiliar with so the setting is an intriguing one. As might be expected of subject matter the book is brutal and unflinching on the topics of slavery and the sex trade.

We follow the story of a young male slave who was bought by a brothel owner by mistake (they thought they were buying a girl). It follows his experiences first as kitchen helper but eventually in the seedier parts of the establishment. With the spread of Christianity during this period, this type of trade was beginning to move more underground, and that is reflected in the very insular nature of the story. All of the workers are largely confined to the brothel and various euphemisms and attempts at public modesty are adopted. This creates a somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere that definitely aids the plotting and scheming at the center of the story.

This is a hard subject and it is mostly dealt with well. The real problem for me is the last couple of pages, which ruined all the good work put in before. A very forced ending that felt completely detached from what was put in place before and jarred horribly with the flow of the story. I absolutely hate it when a story does that to me! I would rather a sad ending than a jarring and forced happy ending any day. This knocked it down from a 4 star to a moderate 3.