***SPOILER ALERT!!!***
This is a brilliant book, gorgeously written, completely
engrossing. I stayed up half the night to read it because I couldn't put
it down. Yes, there are lots of ugly things that happen in this book,
just as they happen every day in every town. Anyone who thinks these
things don't go on all around us is kidding themselves. But what I
wanted and didn't get was for the heroine, Liga, to achieve happiness
anyway.
It's far too common for victims of abuse in literature
to be punished by everyone and everything long after the abuse is over.
It happens in movies, tv shows, everywhere. It's almost like we are
unable to imagine coming back from things like rape and incest and
living a happy life. But again, people do it every day.
I was so
wrapped up in this book that it was a complete shock to my system when
Liga did not hear what she (and we) expected from Ramstrong near the
end. Liga does not get even the most basic happily ever after. In fact,
in a sick reversal of the original incest that begins the book, the man
she loves marries her daughter. It's grotesque and cruel beyond belief.
And
what it says is: if you are a victim of rape and/or incest, you do not
get to be happy. No one will love you because you are damaged. Is that
really what people think? Is that what you want to say to others? Is
that what you would say to the millions of people who have suffered these
outrages? Of course not. So don't do that to a beloved character,
either.
Liga pulls herself out of the worst misery over and over,
only to be smashed down again. She grows up with horrific emotional,
sexual, and physical abuse. She gets the same treatment after her abuser
dies. She falls in love and then gets that brutally taken away from
her, too. The ending is so very wrong, I'm pretty much scared to pick up
another book for a while because of that betrayal. I feel like
screaming at the author: but I thought you loved her! Why would you do
that to her?
Another reviewer wrote that the men aren't
important in this book, which is an interesting point of view. They
aren't important as people, but they are crucial negative forces, which
makes them important. But then this thing with Ramstrong. He's important
to Liga and then gets taken away, cutting her to the heart. So what are
we to make of that? Men = pain? Even the good ones will kill you dead
because they don't even notice you're alive? Is that the point of it?
I
would like to believe that this isn't true. But then, after all that, I
kind of want Liga to go back to her dream world heaven, too.
