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Apr. 15th, 2016 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI am reading a book right now that is ablist as all hell.
It's a fantasy where there is healing magic, so when a boy is born with a malformed foot, they use magic to try and fix it. When the magic doesn't work the book explains that this is (a) because the gods want to teach the boy a lesson and (b) because secretly he wants to be disabled, as an excuse to fail.
... I don't know why I'm still reading this book.
And it's not like it's just a couple of objectionable characters saying shit. It's an actual central mechanism of the book. It's the medium through which the protagonist gains and expresses character growth. He magics his foot better and then the chronic pain is all in his mind and as long as he maintains the right attitude it will stop hurting. In the meantime they give him nothing to help with it, because it is all in his mind. So he should just think happy thoughts. To fix his chronic pain. From having the bones in his foot rearranged and regrown. Because gods. And morals.
... no, I know why I'm reading this book, it's because it was a present and the handwriting in the front suggests it was from a relative now departed so I don't want to throw the book away and therefore want to find some kind of redeeming feature in it.
But it's basically about a couple of teenage boys chasing after a couple of damsels in distress, and one of them has to be more confident and take risks and lose his fear of failure and then will be magically healed of his lifelong disability. Which he wanted. As an excuse.
... I really, really don't like this book.
It also doesn't help that it's part of a long series of two teenage guys going on quests, often involving rescuing the girl, always involving getting the girl like she's a present. Each guy has one girl, except for when they're competing for the prettiest one, who gets replaced only when they come to an agreement between them that the girl shall choose which guy she likes. Because that is something that takes on average a third of the book to decide. That a woman has a choice in boyfriends. And then, once they're all neatly paired off, the book takes a break so the next generation can become teenage boys. Because once the quest is ended and they've levelled up as high as they're going then clearly there's nothing interesting to write about in, for instance, getting to know this woman they met on a quest.
I think I remember now why I have the next three books in the To Sell pile. It doesn't matter if they're individually good, because they're going to be about two teenage boys questing for women. My epic level not caring is... ugh.
It's a fantasy where there is healing magic, so when a boy is born with a malformed foot, they use magic to try and fix it. When the magic doesn't work the book explains that this is (a) because the gods want to teach the boy a lesson and (b) because secretly he wants to be disabled, as an excuse to fail.
... I don't know why I'm still reading this book.
And it's not like it's just a couple of objectionable characters saying shit. It's an actual central mechanism of the book. It's the medium through which the protagonist gains and expresses character growth. He magics his foot better and then the chronic pain is all in his mind and as long as he maintains the right attitude it will stop hurting. In the meantime they give him nothing to help with it, because it is all in his mind. So he should just think happy thoughts. To fix his chronic pain. From having the bones in his foot rearranged and regrown. Because gods. And morals.
... no, I know why I'm reading this book, it's because it was a present and the handwriting in the front suggests it was from a relative now departed so I don't want to throw the book away and therefore want to find some kind of redeeming feature in it.
But it's basically about a couple of teenage boys chasing after a couple of damsels in distress, and one of them has to be more confident and take risks and lose his fear of failure and then will be magically healed of his lifelong disability. Which he wanted. As an excuse.
... I really, really don't like this book.
It also doesn't help that it's part of a long series of two teenage guys going on quests, often involving rescuing the girl, always involving getting the girl like she's a present. Each guy has one girl, except for when they're competing for the prettiest one, who gets replaced only when they come to an agreement between them that the girl shall choose which guy she likes. Because that is something that takes on average a third of the book to decide. That a woman has a choice in boyfriends. And then, once they're all neatly paired off, the book takes a break so the next generation can become teenage boys. Because once the quest is ended and they've levelled up as high as they're going then clearly there's nothing interesting to write about in, for instance, getting to know this woman they met on a quest.
I think I remember now why I have the next three books in the To Sell pile. It doesn't matter if they're individually good, because they're going to be about two teenage boys questing for women. My epic level not caring is... ugh.