Life in the ludus
Aug. 19th, 2021 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodygranuaileA few years ago I picked up a stack of interesting girl-power-y-looking YA books at Wellesley Books and then have not gotten around to reading them, so on my latest jaunt to Maine I promised that I would read at least one of the books from that pile. I picked Lesley Livingston’s The Valiant, the first number in what is apparently a trilogy, a historical fiction about female gladiators in ancient Rome.
I had… somewhat mixed feelings about it? It seems very well researched and it’s a lot of fun, and there’s lots of kickass stuff about gladiatrixing, but the main plot is basically about Fallon (our protagonist, a Celtic princess whomst is captured by Roman slavers and sold into gladiatrixing) coming to terms with being literally enslaved and like… redefining her personal ideas of success and her win conditions to navigate the power structures of imperialist Rome? And like, pragmatism and adaptability are important but it’s a little jarring to me to read a YA novel about the importance of selling out and of allowing one’s mind to be colonized. But it’s like, distressing political messaging aside, it’s a really exciting and interesting adventure in getting into and then out of all sorts of scrapes and navigating treacherous political scenarios and becoming an excellent gladiatrix? So, yeah, really just not sure what to make of that overall, but also it was a ton of fun and I enjoyed reading it quite a lot.
The other thing I found jarring is, actually, the obligatory heterosexual romantic subplot; my YA consumption has dropped precipitously from a few years ago and the only YA I have read since Vengeance Road last August has been either ace or sapphic or both. So I found myself mildly confused by the romance with the gallant Roman decurion fellow, and the total lack of even the mildest bit of romantic tension between Fallon and Elka, the tall funny Viking chick that Fallon starts off literally chained to and is sold to the ludus in a pair with and has a generally very charming enemies-to-best-friends arc with. Like, honestly. This is the obvious ship.
Other than those two things, it was good! I like Girls With Swords type books and I had fun reading it! I would be down for reading the sequels one of these days.
I had… somewhat mixed feelings about it? It seems very well researched and it’s a lot of fun, and there’s lots of kickass stuff about gladiatrixing, but the main plot is basically about Fallon (our protagonist, a Celtic princess whomst is captured by Roman slavers and sold into gladiatrixing) coming to terms with being literally enslaved and like… redefining her personal ideas of success and her win conditions to navigate the power structures of imperialist Rome? And like, pragmatism and adaptability are important but it’s a little jarring to me to read a YA novel about the importance of selling out and of allowing one’s mind to be colonized. But it’s like, distressing political messaging aside, it’s a really exciting and interesting adventure in getting into and then out of all sorts of scrapes and navigating treacherous political scenarios and becoming an excellent gladiatrix? So, yeah, really just not sure what to make of that overall, but also it was a ton of fun and I enjoyed reading it quite a lot.
The other thing I found jarring is, actually, the obligatory heterosexual romantic subplot; my YA consumption has dropped precipitously from a few years ago and the only YA I have read since Vengeance Road last August has been either ace or sapphic or both. So I found myself mildly confused by the romance with the gallant Roman decurion fellow, and the total lack of even the mildest bit of romantic tension between Fallon and Elka, the tall funny Viking chick that Fallon starts off literally chained to and is sold to the ludus in a pair with and has a generally very charming enemies-to-best-friends arc with. Like, honestly. This is the obvious ship.
Other than those two things, it was good! I like Girls With Swords type books and I had fun reading it! I would be down for reading the sequels one of these days.