“The Everlasting” by Alix E. Harrow [Femdom Book Review]

This one was an outside recommendation, initially seeming like another version of the big warrior woman (Una) paired with a squishy male scholar (Owen) trope. That’s practically old hat by now, at least in indie works, but it makes sense this had now proven bankable enough to get a foot in the trad published door. I think if this was just a goofy little romp, that would have been fine. But, as a queer-feminist work trying to be very grim and serious, I don’t think it has enough self reflection to escape the very problems it is critical of. About the only positives I got from this book is to hold it up as a mirror to the history of actual woman warrior characters. In particular to this, is the observable way that sword and sorcery fantasy shifted in different eras, telling stories of what should be possible according to a justification for why women get to have adventures and fight… while still pleasing the presumed audience’s suspension of disbelief. And, what that disbelief said…