The books definitely have many problematic elements, but IMO they’re still good. But separating the art from the artist is really fucking hard when that artist is right now a prominent political activist with (some) actual sway with her national government, and she’s also still earning money and producing new content based on that book series. And it’s not even like the books are completely unpolitical, the plot features governments, fascist takeovers and resistance fighters - it’s very apparent that she has opinions on these kinds of things and probably genuinely thinks that she’s one of the good guys, despite so clearly working against her stated cause of women’s rights and supporting straight-up fascists.
The books are good for what they are: children’s books that take you from ~8-13 years old. I loved them when I was a kid, and now it’s just hard to get through them because the writing is just average at best, and the plots are so basic they undermine the actually interesting setting and prevent it from being as mindblowing as they could have been.
I’ve read a lot of fantasy novels, there are a lot of bad ones. She’s no Pratchett, but she easily beats average for fantasy novel series - the world is fucked up but vibrant, the characters memorable and it doesn’t get boring and repetitive after the first book like so many other series.
The primary audience is definitely young teenagers, but it was really good at drawing in adults, as well.
The stories are entertaining but the messaging and world building are lazy and inconsistent. And then yeah the books are filled to the brim with the sort of casual racism borne not only of ignorance but from a lack of interest in educating yourself in the first place. It’s just full of holes which is fine for kids books, but the belligerence is grating.
The books definitely have many problematic elements, but IMO they’re still good. But separating the art from the artist is really fucking hard when that artist is right now a prominent political activist with (some) actual sway with her national government, and she’s also still earning money and producing new content based on that book series. And it’s not even like the books are completely unpolitical, the plot features governments, fascist takeovers and resistance fighters - it’s very apparent that she has opinions on these kinds of things and probably genuinely thinks that she’s one of the good guys, despite so clearly working against her stated cause of women’s rights and supporting straight-up fascists.
The books are good for what they are: children’s books that take you from ~8-13 years old. I loved them when I was a kid, and now it’s just hard to get through them because the writing is just average at best, and the plots are so basic they undermine the actually interesting setting and prevent it from being as mindblowing as they could have been.
I’ve read a lot of fantasy novels, there are a lot of bad ones. She’s no Pratchett, but she easily beats average for fantasy novel series - the world is fucked up but vibrant, the characters memorable and it doesn’t get boring and repetitive after the first book like so many other series.
The primary audience is definitely young teenagers, but it was really good at drawing in adults, as well.
The stories are entertaining but the messaging and world building are lazy and inconsistent. And then yeah the books are filled to the brim with the sort of casual racism borne not only of ignorance but from a lack of interest in educating yourself in the first place. It’s just full of holes which is fine for kids books, but the belligerence is grating.