Charlotte Kersten

“Maybe the world isn’t really different, but I am different, and I am in the world.”

Year published: 2018

Categories: YA, fantasy

Summary: In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess, stubbornly, is a troublemaker. You can’t make a scene at your sister’s wedding and break a relative’s nose with one punch (no matter how pompous he is) and not suffer the consequences. As her family plans to send her to a nunnery, Tess yanks on her boots and sets out on a journey across the Southlands, alone and pretending to be a boy.

Where Tess is headed is a mystery, even to her. So when she runs into an old friend, it’s a stroke of luck. This friend is a quigutl—a subspecies of dragon—who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road. But Tess is guarding a troubling secret. Her tumultuous past is a heavy burden to carry, and the memories she’s tried to forget threaten to expose her to the world in more ways than one.

My Thoughts: This is a pretty special book and will most certainly be added to the list of Charlotte’s Supremely Favorite Fantasy Books About Trauma and Recovery. It’s a meandering picaresque journey about a girl finding herself through layers of self-hatred and it balances the aspects of exploration and adventure with the aspects of self-reflection and growth very well.

The heart of the story’s strength is that Tess is a really strong character. She’s a complex mix of irrepressible spirit and mischief and pain and self-hatred and kindness and curiosity and determination to do the right thing. Hartman does a great job of showing her layers of guilt and grief and denial and blame, everything damaging she has learned from her society and her mother in particular. Her journey is an extremely powerful one of learning that she can make a difference in the world while coming to terms with her past and her body and silencing the hateful voices in her head.

Tess’s story is one that has to do with grooming and rape, and the book deals excellently with Goredd’s culture of victim-blaming and sexual repression, showing how these things go hand in hand with patriarchy and misguided religious fervor. Tess’s story shows how these unjust societal standards simply invisibilize the harm that happens, casts blame on the people who were hurt rather than the people who made a deliberate decision to hurt someone else, and perpetuate a sexual double standard that in turn exacerbates when repercussions are handed out in the aftermath of sexual assault. I know some readers don’t like reading about sexist worlds but I do when they have something meaningful to say that sheds light on our own world, and that’s definitely the case here.

One interesting note about Tess’s story is that she is not only a victim, but under her rapist Will’s instruction she also kissed Spira without his consent, ruining his position with the academy and getting him extremely sick. I’ll admit that it sat really uneasily with me at first to acknowledge the way that a survivor can hurt someone else because of their own grooming and abuse. It’s an important and uncomfortable thing to remember but it feels like a massive part of Tess’s story that just isn’t really addressed as completely as the rest of her past over the course of the book. Spira shows up at the end of the story and he and Tess are heading to the same place, so I’m hoping this will be explored more in the next book.

The other qualm I have is, like my beloved Daughter of the Forest, Tess of the Road also features an underage survivor having Beautiful Healing Sex with a man who is much older than her. YEAH it’s a fantasy book set in made up olden times but this kind of plot point feels weird to me no matter what!!!

Another strength is the complexity of the family dynamics that are depicted, especially the “good sister, bad sister” conflict between Tess and her sister Jeanne due to their mother’s unhappiness and exacting nature. It really rings true as the sibling dynamic in an unhappy family, especially the fact that each one of them has a totally different perspective on their childhoods and respective burdens because of the other sister. I like that this isn’t perfectly resolved by the end of the book.

This is a book with an extremely charming and lovely writing style and tons of endearing details like dirty marginalia in a monastery and fables about a giant hedgehog. The dialogue is also consistently great and Tess encounters many vivid characters throughout her journeys, from the miserable monk Moldi to implacable Seraphina and Tess’s dear quigutl companion Pathka. I really liked the quigutl a lot – their culture is very interesting, as is the entirety of the lore surrounding dragons, saints and World Serpents.

I do question a few of Tess’s big decisions over the course of the book. I specifically don’t find it credible that she doesn’t anticipate the humans killing/exploiting Anathuthia after she makes the World Serpent’s presence known to them. It’s also strange that she doesn’t let her work crew know she is alive after surviving a cave-in. They’re her friends and they all think she’s dead, and while she could easily have retraced her steps to say goodbye she just lets them continue thinking she’s dead.

I can’t seem to find much info about whether this book is inspired by Tess of the D’urbervilles but I could definitely see that being the case – you have the same deeply patriarchal world that punishes a young woman after her rape, the death of a baby born from her abuse and her process of survival through common labor after the fact. If anyone happens to know anything more about this let me know, because I’m curious!