Tempests and Slaughter

I have connected with so many of my friends through Tamora Pierce books—there's something about her fantasy settings and characters that bolsters and nurtures the curious and weird and brave parts of us. I was browsing my library's ebook page and came across this book, which is the beginning of a new series.

This series has a boy protagonist, which Pierce writes less often. He's a sweet orphan, almost like a YA-sized version of Taborlin from The Name of the Wind. Like Taborlin, Arram Draper is prodigiously talented and is deeply devoted to becoming more adept at his gifts. Also like Name of the Wind, there is not quite enough tension because every obstacle that Arram encounters is easily overcome by the power of his gifts. All that said, I did enjoy the book because I am a sucker for magic and wizards and shit.

Just like you can never return home, returning to familiar imaginative playgrounds can be a disorienting experience. As much as I love the Tamora Pierce-verse, it's easier to see the cracks in the façade. It's great that she has always built sex-positivity and consent ethics into her books, but the lengths (no pun intended) this book goes to try and find a Ye Olde way to avoid the words penis and “boner” was even more awkward than just using the real words. While I like her attention to imagining an inclusive world that everyone can be a part of, I did not like that every dark skinned character was described in terms of the shade of their skin (sometimes in reference to food items) and light skinned characters were described in terms of their culture. Plot beats signaling the compromised values of a character on their journey to becoming big bad are clunky and obvious and slow.

I would definitely recommend this book to a young person or as a nostalgia trip for anybody who already likes Tamora Pierce books. If nothing in this review has pinged your interest, I'd give it a skip.