A World Without Princes by Soman Chainani
No idea what to rate this book. I picked it up in 2015 (a few days past 3 years before I finished it), after having LOVED book one, and flew through the first 20% before putting it down mid-scene. Started reading it again end of July and became very interested in the plot and what it was doing with gender. Started to feel like the plot might be a bit muddled. Then changed my mind. Now I finished it and can’t figure out if I liked it or not? Like I loved parts of it. Parts made me feel a bit like I had no idea what message I was meant to be getting. Like if Sophie and Agatha were Safi and Isult I would not be worried. But I legit can’t tell what lesson is meant to be learned. And it’s a FAIRY TALE book. I assume there should be a lesson or at least some sort of statement. I loved the first book so much. But this one I’m really not sure about. And like Tedros rockets between awesome and awful, loyal and flaky, deep and shallow. And Sophie. I have no idea how to feel about Sophie. She is sometimes misguided but trying incredibly hard to be a good friend, then she is a horrible friend and it kind of isn’t addressed much? The characterization just seems sort of inconsistent. I will read book three and then decide from there if I’m going to read the series continuation.I’m fairly certain that Chainani is gay (I can google post writing I guess) so maybe some of the things that were a bit gender odd (in a way that could have been read at times as transphobic) is meant to be playing with sexuality stuff as well as gender? I imagine finishing the next book will let me see what he is going for in these books. Like sometimes I literally would whoop or clap when something awesome and gender interesting would happen then other times I was like very confused. Also like I can’t tell if we are meant to take away that we can’t have strong friendships if we have a significant other? I don’t think that’s what he’s going for. But it isn’t really written in a way that makes his meaning clear to me. Sometimes it is very useful to make the reader think a lot about author intent and the way content can be translated into real life. But my confusion shouldn’t be in his messaging if that was the goal. Unfortunately, I don’t know which box book three is in. So I can’t just jump right in. But I will once I find it’s box.
I should try to find a review of the series that comes from someone who does not ID as cis. And finish the series. Also, I think I should state that I am 24 so maybe the observations about gender I find engaging are just vastly different from where a kid engages with it? But I’m not looking for like upper-level gender theory I was just a bit confused at times what message I was meant to be taking. But also at times I was snapping and LOVING it. Basically, I need to finish the series to know whats up probably and I am sorry to anyone having to read my nonsense.
I have not yet rated this on Goodreads and finished reading it on August 8th, 2018.
