Review: The Second Mango
Aug. 23rd, 2014 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetBisexual Books on Tumblr has had me buying a lot of books recently 9_9a I just finished reading one I got yesterday and thought I'd write a review :3
The Second Mango by Shira Glassman is a charming and delightful read. Anyone who's looking for diversity in stories and characters will find it here: the first/primary main character, Shulamit, is a lesbian with medium brown skin, who is gluten-intolerant (possibly Celiac, though the fantasy world doesn't have a specific term for that) and can't have poultry either. The primary (only?) religion in the world is Judaism, and while I'm sure I missed a lot of Jewish subtext and symbolism (raised Catholic as I was), what I caught was delightful and refreshing.
We open on the primary main character, Shulamit, in a good deal of trouble. Over the past few months, her long-term lover has left her (the only other woman she knows who is attracted to the same gender, to boot) and asked Shulamit not to contact her, her father has died, and she's been made queen of her country of Perach. Desperate for *ahem* companionship, Shulamit ditches her guard and sneaks out to the bawdy house - where she is kidnapped before she can even have a little "fun"! Her rescue comes in the form of Rivka, a woman warrior posing as a man who rides a dragon that frequently takes the form of a horse.
Sadly for Shulamit, Rivka doesn't dress as a man because she's romantically interested in women, but because it's the only way she knows of to get work as a warrior. Nevertheless, Shulamit is grateful to have a true friend, one who doesn't judge her for her attraction to women or think she's lying about her digestive problems. In exchange for a promise to instate her as the captain of the guard should they succeed, Rivka agrees to be Shulamit's bodyguard as the young queen searches for a woman who could be her lover.
The writing itself is not the most amazing I've ever come across. It's fairly simple, and I was thrown out of the text somewhat by the frequent use of "Yeah" instead of "Yes" - though that's probably my own linguistic bias at work. The story itself is mostly fluff, but I found it to be highly enjoyable fluff and finished it less than a day after I bought it. I'm very much looking forward to reading the sequel, Climbing the Date Palm, which I'll probably start as soon as I finish writing this review ;)
The Jewish faith references were woven in subtly and with fair frequency, and made the story richer overall. Also, Shulamit's lover is bisexual, and while Shulamit has a brief insecure moment or two that her lover would leave her/left her for a man, someone she could have children with, these insecurities are proven unfounded, nicely squashing that bit of biphobia.
As far as warnings go: There are a couple of relatively inexplicit sex scenes, one F/F and one het, with all parties involved being cis. I'd classify them as being on the "high" end of PG-13 or the "low" end of R, in terms of how explicit they are. If we were using older fanfic terms, I'd call them "lime". There's also mention of someone attempting to sexually assault one of the characters, though that happens entirely off-screen and the assaulter gets their comeuppance. There's some (mostly mild) homophobia, mostly passive/in microaggressions, though once overtly when a shopkeeper being disgusted by Shulamit openly kissing her lover in front of their stall. Oh, and Shulamit has some objectifying tendencies towards women to whom she is attracted, but she mostly manages them fairly well.
All in all, The Second Mango was a quick, fun read, and something I would recommend to anyone looking for a diverse cast of characters to spend an afternoon with.
The Second Mango by Shira Glassman is a charming and delightful read. Anyone who's looking for diversity in stories and characters will find it here: the first/primary main character, Shulamit, is a lesbian with medium brown skin, who is gluten-intolerant (possibly Celiac, though the fantasy world doesn't have a specific term for that) and can't have poultry either. The primary (only?) religion in the world is Judaism, and while I'm sure I missed a lot of Jewish subtext and symbolism (raised Catholic as I was), what I caught was delightful and refreshing.
We open on the primary main character, Shulamit, in a good deal of trouble. Over the past few months, her long-term lover has left her (the only other woman she knows who is attracted to the same gender, to boot) and asked Shulamit not to contact her, her father has died, and she's been made queen of her country of Perach. Desperate for *ahem* companionship, Shulamit ditches her guard and sneaks out to the bawdy house - where she is kidnapped before she can even have a little "fun"! Her rescue comes in the form of Rivka, a woman warrior posing as a man who rides a dragon that frequently takes the form of a horse.
Sadly for Shulamit, Rivka doesn't dress as a man because she's romantically interested in women, but because it's the only way she knows of to get work as a warrior. Nevertheless, Shulamit is grateful to have a true friend, one who doesn't judge her for her attraction to women or think she's lying about her digestive problems. In exchange for a promise to instate her as the captain of the guard should they succeed, Rivka agrees to be Shulamit's bodyguard as the young queen searches for a woman who could be her lover.
The writing itself is not the most amazing I've ever come across. It's fairly simple, and I was thrown out of the text somewhat by the frequent use of "Yeah" instead of "Yes" - though that's probably my own linguistic bias at work. The story itself is mostly fluff, but I found it to be highly enjoyable fluff and finished it less than a day after I bought it. I'm very much looking forward to reading the sequel, Climbing the Date Palm, which I'll probably start as soon as I finish writing this review ;)
The Jewish faith references were woven in subtly and with fair frequency, and made the story richer overall. Also, Shulamit's lover is bisexual, and while Shulamit has a brief insecure moment or two that her lover would leave her/left her for a man, someone she could have children with, these insecurities are proven unfounded, nicely squashing that bit of biphobia.
As far as warnings go: There are a couple of relatively inexplicit sex scenes, one F/F and one het, with all parties involved being cis. I'd classify them as being on the "high" end of PG-13 or the "low" end of R, in terms of how explicit they are. If we were using older fanfic terms, I'd call them "lime". There's also mention of someone attempting to sexually assault one of the characters, though that happens entirely off-screen and the assaulter gets their comeuppance. There's some (mostly mild) homophobia, mostly passive/in microaggressions, though once overtly when a shopkeeper being disgusted by Shulamit openly kissing her lover in front of their stall. Oh, and Shulamit has some objectifying tendencies towards women to whom she is attracted, but she mostly manages them fairly well.
All in all, The Second Mango was a quick, fun read, and something I would recommend to anyone looking for a diverse cast of characters to spend an afternoon with.
