Review: The Golden Enclaves

---

Cory’s Review

---

Bit of a rant here.

Look, Naomi Novik is one of my favorite authors. I’ve never given one of her books less than 5 stars, and I had to do some serous MATH to land on this rating. If I’d gone on instinct alone, it probably would have been a 2, but after talking it over for TWO DAYS with my bestie and co-blogger, Angela, and laying everything out, 3 seems more fair.

The good parts were very good, BUT.

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

The horrible attempt at bi (and poly?) rep was truly something. And don’t come at me for this, I AM PAN AND POLY and this is just my opinion on it – I’m sure there are other queer people out there who feel differently, and that’s fine too. I am all here for El being bi and/or polyamorous and exploring her sexuality, but the way it was done here did not sit well with me and felt extremely half-assed.

The first time El had sex with Liesel, I got it. She was lost and grieving and thought Orion was dead and just wanted a warm body and to feel anything but lost for five fucking minutes. Anyone should be able to understand that.

But then there is the total lack of chemistry between them and the fact that El literally never thinks about her attraction to Liesel for the rest of the book. In fact, when Orion is around, Liesel doesn’t even seem to exist anymore, on page or in El’s mind, even when she’s still RIGHT THERE with them. So when they (El and Liesel) hooked up the second time, on the plane, out of nowhere, what the fuck?

I don’t know because El literally never thinks about it again so that leaves everyone reading it to draw whatever conclusions they want. Conclusions like they’re both just using each other – Liesel in some misguided attempt to glom onto El and keep her from going maleficer (instead of because, I don’t know, she actually likes and is attracted to El), and El as a way to distract herself from her torment. It leaves you with questions like does El even feel the same way about Orion – she never says I love you back. Is El simply polyamorous?

A ton of other reviewers view this second bout of sex with Liesel as cheating because El and Orion had just had sex and he confessed his love for El, but El and Orion never talk about their relationship and what it “is”, so it doesn’t technically qualify as cheating, but I understand why people feel like it is. Because if you don’t define your relationship with someone who cares about literally nothing in the world besides killing mals and being with you, that feels pretty uncomfortable for most monogamous people, and hell, even polyamorous me because I know through some ugly first-hand experience that if you don’t talk to the people you care about or are intimate with about your intentions, they will get hurt.

You could explain El’s behavior as exploring her sexuality, and that would have been WONDERFUL, but it wasn’t done at all. She just hooked up with Liesel to feel good in her body for five minutes and that’s all the explanation you get. Does it make it wrong? Abso-fucking-lutely not. Does it make El a bad person? Fuck no. But when you don’t so much as spend two sentences on a character’s motivations it makes what they’re doing feel shallow or (what felt more likely in this instance) like it just wasn’t thought through by the author at all. Especially when so much time and headspace is spent on how El feels about literally everyone else, not just Orion, but Aadhya and Liu and, god, even Ophelia.

There were nine million ways I could have gotten on board with this, but the way it was executed just left me feeling unsettled and like I was only given half of what I wanted. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe the youths are fine with it. Maybe I’m just an old queer woman who has made a lot of mistakes and knows how much not talking with your romantic and sexual partners can lead to hurt feelings so it’s harder for me to be okay with such a laissez faire approach to it.

I think the other reasons I didn’t like it were a) I just plain don’t like or trust Liesel and b) I didn’t want to read 250 pages about El and Liesel clomping across the globe together, whether they had sex or not. That goes back to their lack of chemistry or even trust. I would MUCH RATHER have read about El and Aadhya and Liu going on this grand crusade together. They have hilarious banter that acts as a much-needed counterweight to all the heavy themes in these books, they bring out the best in each other, they’re who I’ve spent the previous two installments with, and so to suddenly have them shunted out in favor of Liesel (who I will never like because she tried to kill El and is just as bad as the enclavers) was disappointing.

Lastly, that ending. None of the bad guys faced any consequences? In fact, they all benefited from the outcome? Wut? I know this reflects how things play out in the real world, but I don’t read fantasy because I want to see the bad guys triumph in fiction too. I read fantasy because I want to see magic equal the playing field between men and women and for women to use that power to make sure the bad people GO AWAY.

And Orion’s whole story arc. Ow. I wanted so much more for that poor boy than to be stuck doing the thing he was created to do for the rest of his life and only have two months a year with the woman he loves. It would have been so much more satisfying if he had broken free from what his mother did to him and took up painting or artificing, or just, like, tried to find himself outside of being a living mawmouth.

Okay, I feel better now after getting that all out. Ranting can be highly cathartic. Again, these are just my personal feelings. Don’t come at me if you don’t agree. We can both be right about this. Instead, spew sunshine and rainbows all over your own review and fangirl with people who feel the same way as you if you loved this. That’s the vibe. That’s what will make you feel good. Not bringing bad energy to people you don’t see eye-to-eye with.

---

Angela’s Review

---

Look, it’s hard to add much to Cory’s review above, because we spent her entire time reading it discussing it and I feel so much the same. I read this book on release day – and I sat with it until someone I knew had also read it. Just sat. Thinking about what the fuck I was going to rate it. And honestly, trying to get my feelings in order.

(Also, I was really hoping that Cory could bring me around and make some of these things better for me while she was reading….what was I thinking? I must have had some heavy delusions going on)

Being bi, it’s hard to find good representation that isn’t more of the same that we’ve been getting for years. I always want more. And I want more acceptance and openness about women having whatever relationships they want. My problems with El/Liesel are two-fold.

One: Liesel. What? Where did this even come from?

Two: The second time veers to closely to cheating to me. On the one hand I get it, and I don’t want to judge how people deal with the immense stress that El has been under, but on the other – talk with the person you love. El and Orion both deserve that. And when it veers too closely to cheating, it feels very like the bi-woman can’t be trusted to be faithful – and I HATE that trope (that stereotype) with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns.

I can work hard and read some things (deep) between the lines to make this work better for me – but just a little more time spent on this would have made it amazing and made me love it.

The ending was the part that really made me struggle though. Ostensibly it’s an HEA, but it’s also fairly bleak. I feel like their society took five steps forward and another ten back. Some things are better, but also – I want to burn their society to the fucking ground.

And WHY must Orion and El not be together for the majority of the time?? WHYYY

Ugh.

Look, I know this is ranting, but I need it – still. Even though I spent days ranting with Cory about this in text. Because, everything else in this book? Honestly, pretty much loved. Like a LOT.

The plot, the breadcrumbs, the reveals? All top notch and amazing. Plus the emotions that I was feeling in the beginning – not the annoyance that I note above, but real, balling my eyes out emotion was so good. It felt so real, and there were so many good gut-punches – yes, I know that’s weird to say.

I want more of that. And more Aadhya and Liu. (Why Liesel??!!??)

Look, this series is still amazing. I’ll probably delete this crap that annoyed me from my memory and rewrite the ending in my own head, and be ecstatically happy. I just wish my reading experience had lived up to the first two books.