Review: A Great and Terrible Beauty

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Orientalist trash.

This was, without a doubt, one of the most irritating books I've ever read. It continues and reinforces Orientalist characterizations without a single qualm. As a scholar of nineteenth-century British literature, I'm used to seeing Orientalist tropes used in books from my period. While they are regrettable, they're also part and parcel of the time in which they were written. While this novel may have been set in nineteenth-century Victorian India and England, there was no need for Bray to continue those same tropes. As this is a fantasy novel, that sort of realism in the setting was not necessary, especially when it is never condemned within the novel.

It's been six years since I read this book, and it still makes me angry. Sometimes, I think I would like to reread it just to confirm that it was as hateful as I first thought. However, that tends to be a passing urge. Life is simply too short to waste on bad books--especially when I have a dissertation to write.

Oh, if you need to understand what Orientalism is, look to this book: Orientalism by Edward W. Said.



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