Unsatisfying
Tuesday, 6 January 2026 16:33![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lea_hazelBy some chain of events that I'm not 100% clear on, on Saturday afternoon/evening, I went down a rabbit hole of searching for female-led fantasy books. Again. I can't count how many times I've done this, and yet the results are most often frustrating and unsatisfying, in a way that makes me feel like a weird gremlin.
Part of that is that I'm incredibly persnickety about what I'm looking for, and none of the people who have tried recommending books to me really gets it.
a random sampling of some of my idiosyncrasies: adult female lead, where adult means a real grownup, not "technically past majority but behaves like a teenager in every way", complex relationships, ideally little romance, fantasy (not science fiction, not urban fantasy), secondary world, not a fairy tale retelling, not an alternate history, ideally no male authors (can find those on my own, and I've read plenty of them already), preferably something published in the last 15 years and still in print, preferentially not anything from the 80s or 90s (I know those), and NOT YOUNG ADULT. NOT YOUNG ADULT.
so as you can see. the whole process is. frustrating.
So on a whim, I started reading Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow (published in 2005). I daresay it's quite a good book. It's well-written, and the worldbuilding is intriguing. Various mysteries are laid out meticulously and answered piecemeal. Conflict abounds. If I didn't have a series of incredibly specific sensitivities, I probably would have enjoyed it greatly. Followed by enjoying the next 15-20 books in the same series. About one a year since the first one, maybe? Anyway, it's a lot of books.
But 2005 wasn't a very good year for me, and something about the context of the book sent me back there in a way that I didn't care for. I didn't finish it.
I can neither recommend, nor counter-recommend it.
Part of that is that I'm incredibly persnickety about what I'm looking for, and none of the people who have tried recommending books to me really gets it.
a random sampling of some of my idiosyncrasies: adult female lead, where adult means a real grownup, not "technically past majority but behaves like a teenager in every way", complex relationships, ideally little romance, fantasy (not science fiction, not urban fantasy), secondary world, not a fairy tale retelling, not an alternate history, ideally no male authors (can find those on my own, and I've read plenty of them already), preferably something published in the last 15 years and still in print, preferentially not anything from the 80s or 90s (I know those), and NOT YOUNG ADULT. NOT YOUNG ADULT.
so as you can see. the whole process is. frustrating.
So on a whim, I started reading Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow (published in 2005). I daresay it's quite a good book. It's well-written, and the worldbuilding is intriguing. Various mysteries are laid out meticulously and answered piecemeal. Conflict abounds. If I didn't have a series of incredibly specific sensitivities, I probably would have enjoyed it greatly. Followed by enjoying the next 15-20 books in the same series. About one a year since the first one, maybe? Anyway, it's a lot of books.
But 2005 wasn't a very good year for me, and something about the context of the book sent me back there in a way that I didn't care for. I didn't finish it.
I can neither recommend, nor counter-recommend it.
