But hey, there's still hope for her since all those bad sexy things she's done - yeah, none of those were for pleasure, so it's gotta be okay. And ALL of her problems obviously stem from being sexually used from a young age.

Well, apparently all her badassery goes out the window the moment Kylar's sexy man-charms reach her. She is supposed to be a badass, but a deeply flawed one. Instead of righting the wrongs, Kylar gets to be all sickeningly cute and sugary with Elene while attempting to raise the world's most annoying child ever.īoth my hand and my head hurt from the endless facepalming in addition to all the eyerolling.ĮXHIBIT B: VI (WHORE): Unlike whiny Elene, Vi is a trained assassin. Let me repeat - she abhors murder and thus removes from the city the only guy WHO COULD HAVE STOPPED THOUSANDS FROM BEING MURDERED.

Well, that's good, right? Well, unless you take the only guy that can use his super-powers to save thousands of the inhabitants of his hometown from bloodthirsty invaders and force him to leave he city and start a 'regular' life with you - as long as he does not kill, even the bad guys. She tries to help Kylar denounce his former murdering ways by turning him into a mundane law-abiding peacefully-living sorta-spouse. She is supposed to be sweet, kind, and innocent. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to some examples of the aforementioned virgin-whore situation we've got on our hands:ĮXHIBIT A: ELENE (VIRGIN): Saintly mind-numbingly boring Elene is clearly the embodiment of goodness in this book (and the entire story arc, as the events of the sequel show). *cue exasperated eyeroll*The only acceptable state of unmarried genitalia. Sidenote: By the way, can somebody please explain to me why EVERY SINGLE 'GOOD' CHARACTER (men included, at least no misogyny there) must be a virgin? Because CLEARLY the state of your reproductive organs is what determines who you are. This may be the view of this quasi-medieval society, but we are not shown anything to disprove it at all. The virgin/whore dichotomy rules this book and the entire worth of a woman is reduced to her sexuality. They all lack any depth whatsoever, becoming little more than caricatures. I cringed very time a female character took stage.

The terrible, atrocious portrayal of female characters annoyed me even more than in the first book. Because all women are either virgins or whores, right? *sigh* It is even more obsessed with virginity/chastity than an average American Sex Ed class. My ocular muscles are sore from all the eyerolling I did when I read Shadow's Edge.

Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks