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Damsel by Elana K. Book Review (trigger warning)

By: Grace

I started reading this book without knowing what it was about; the book cover was really cool, with flowers and vines and a nice orange glow to the title. I assumed it was going to be another cool fantasy novel. However, I was very very wrong. As a warning, the book includes / mentions sexually explicit scenes, rape, self-harm, mental and physical abuse, suicide, and animal harm. Despite the triggers, I think the book was really captivating and well written, and sends a clear point throughout the book. 

The novel starts out in Prince Emory's point of view, where he is going to rescue the "damsel" in order to wed her and become the king. The rest of the novel is in Ama, the damsel's, point of view, who wakes up and doesn't remember anything about herself. She knows nothing except for the things Emory tells her; he gives her a name and tells her she will be his future bride. As the novel progresses, Emory, who seems to be represented as the hero who saved Ama, slowly transforms into more of a monster. In addition, the entire kingdom seems to have the same point of view towards women. 

What seems to be a typical fairy tale transforms into a dark feminist story. The novel was really well written -- despite some of the disturbing content that I skipped through, I really wanted to read through the end because I wanted to see how Ama developed as a character as she was experiencing some pretty horrible things. 

In general, I think if you want to read this novel you should be completely sure that you are ready to. The only thing I would really ask for this book is for it to have some kind of warning that is clearly visible to the reader before they read it. The thing that really threw me off is the "teen" label it has pasted on its spine. Overall the book, was great and really well written and exposes how toxic attitudes towards women can be. 

Comments

  1. BridgetMay 17, 2021 at 12:00 PM

    Nice post! I agree with a lot of the points you made. I read a book like this one awhile ago, it was marketed as a romance, but it was quite dark and had really explicit abuse and nonconsensual stuff. I've also been pretty invested in the book community on Instagram and I constantly see really mature books, mostly by Sarah J. Maas (eye roll), that are labeled as teen but really should be adult. It can be potentially harmful for the reader since they're essentially being "tricked" into reading a book they might not be comfortable with. Trigger warnings are important!

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