This book was loaned to me by one of my best friends as good trashy historical fun, which is not exactly my genre, but I will read basically anything if it is gifted or lent to me.
(I thought this cover was trashy enough, what with it depicting the protagonist's sexual assualt, but when Googling to find a picture of it I discovered this cover of an alternate edition and now I see that no, it could have been MUCH TRASHIER and ten times more hilarious.)
Daughter of Satan is about Tamar, a proud young woman who grows up in seventeenth-century England believing that she is the result of a union between her mother and the devil. She is accused of witchcraft, is Torn Between Two Men (of course) and eventually lands herself in the New World in search of a better life.
I --
I'm sorry, Tink, darling.
I hated this book.
To be fair, I didn't hate it for the first third or so. I enjoyed the prose. I was intrigued by Tamar the child, growing up conscious of the ways in which people fear her, deluding herself into pride and power. I liked the expert depiction of the ways in which the society's tensions and preoccupations on the personal level descended directly from the prevailing political climate and the supremacy of religion as a point of disagreement and a means through which to wield power. As a well-written, well-researched portrait of a historical period through the eyes of its inhabitants, this book succeeds.
As a story, as a story about characters, it doesn't. At least, certainly not for me.
From her promising beginning, Tamar degenerates into inconsistency. Sure, people are allowed to be more than one thing, and to change, but I never felt that her character cohered into anything for long enough that I could gain a basic understanding of what made her tick beyond her vanity and her stubborn need to cling to the sense of Darkness and Specialness that made her a hellish but entertaining child. When these are the only things presented to you as the protagonist's consistent motivating factors, it's hard to connect with her, or even care much about what happens to her.
But the real problem with this book is that it is trying to be a historical romance, and I detested both of the love interests with a fiery, fiery passion. I think the fact that Tamar's life in the latter two thirds of the book is primarily about her mixed feelings regarding the two men -- Bartle Cavill the bullying asshole pirate slash country squire, and Humilty Brown the staunchly idealistic Puritan minister -- is what prevents Tamar herself from remaining the kind of protagonist I like. She wavers. She obssesses. She contradicts herself. She self-sabotages. She's religious. She's not religious. She's petty and fearful and cruel. I want to punch her repeatedly in the face.
Humility is well-realised as a character, and a good vehicle for exploring what it meant to be a Puritan in England at such a time, but he's a hypocrite and a whiner and seriously lacks the depth that one finds in, say, Jane Eyre's St John Rivers (a very comparable character); plus, he's just plain irritating. Bartle is worse, though: he's vicious and he's abusive. He sexually assaults Tamar when she's fourteen, and when she's older he blackmails her into sleeping with him twice. She rebuffs him over and over and over again. He smirks. He claims that she was asking for it. She says that she would rather be tortured and hanged as a witch than sleep with him. He claims that she wanted to sleep with him all along and really she was happy that he came up with an excuse like his horrible blackmailing trickery. This, this ghasty rapist and rape-apologist, is his whole character. Even later in the book when Tamar no longer hates him outright he continues to threaten her, manipulate events in order to be close to her, mistreat her, and warn her that he will take what he wants if she doesn't give it up willingly.
Which would be all right, I suppose -- albeit painful to read -- if it were making a point about misogynist bastards and the prevailing culture of the time and how much it really, seriously sucked to be a woman. But no. The thing is: Tamar buys into it. She comes to realise that yes! She secretly did want him to sexually assault her! She misses him horribly when he is not there! Maybe she does love him!
This was the point at which I had to actively refrain from throwing the book to the floor.
To make this stupidity even worse, there is no believable reason given for Tamar's feelings, ever. The sex scenes are never shown and barely even referred to; it's hard to believe that Tamar enjoyed it, even unwillingly, when all we get are her thoughts about how ashamed she is and how much she hates Bartle -- and then, later, when it's narratively convenient, this about-face. It's trying to be the age-old and dubious story of hatred and conflict being a stand-in for excitement and compatability, and it just doesn't work.
The choice Tamar is given is not the choice between two men that she is genuinely attracted to for very different reasons. The choice is between being wanted solely for her spiritedness and her attractiveness as a sexual object, and being wanted because she apparently needs someone to keep an eye on her wicked soul and also she could produce some much-needed Puritan babies.
So. I can't in good conscience recommend this book unless you are looking to incite some fine, healthy feminist fury in yourself, while incidentally reading the bare skeleton of a rather good historical novel that is struggling to exist behind all the shitty 'romance'.
Daughter of Satan is about Tamar, a proud young woman who grows up in seventeenth-century England believing that she is the result of a union between her mother and the devil. She is accused of witchcraft, is Torn Between Two Men (of course) and eventually lands herself in the New World in search of a better life.
I --
I'm sorry, Tink, darling.
I hated this book.
To be fair, I didn't hate it for the first third or so. I enjoyed the prose. I was intrigued by Tamar the child, growing up conscious of the ways in which people fear her, deluding herself into pride and power. I liked the expert depiction of the ways in which the society's tensions and preoccupations on the personal level descended directly from the prevailing political climate and the supremacy of religion as a point of disagreement and a means through which to wield power. As a well-written, well-researched portrait of a historical period through the eyes of its inhabitants, this book succeeds.
As a story, as a story about characters, it doesn't. At least, certainly not for me.
From her promising beginning, Tamar degenerates into inconsistency. Sure, people are allowed to be more than one thing, and to change, but I never felt that her character cohered into anything for long enough that I could gain a basic understanding of what made her tick beyond her vanity and her stubborn need to cling to the sense of Darkness and Specialness that made her a hellish but entertaining child. When these are the only things presented to you as the protagonist's consistent motivating factors, it's hard to connect with her, or even care much about what happens to her.
But the real problem with this book is that it is trying to be a historical romance, and I detested both of the love interests with a fiery, fiery passion. I think the fact that Tamar's life in the latter two thirds of the book is primarily about her mixed feelings regarding the two men -- Bartle Cavill the bullying asshole pirate slash country squire, and Humilty Brown the staunchly idealistic Puritan minister -- is what prevents Tamar herself from remaining the kind of protagonist I like. She wavers. She obssesses. She contradicts herself. She self-sabotages. She's religious. She's not religious. She's petty and fearful and cruel. I want to punch her repeatedly in the face.
Humility is well-realised as a character, and a good vehicle for exploring what it meant to be a Puritan in England at such a time, but he's a hypocrite and a whiner and seriously lacks the depth that one finds in, say, Jane Eyre's St John Rivers (a very comparable character); plus, he's just plain irritating. Bartle is worse, though: he's vicious and he's abusive. He sexually assaults Tamar when she's fourteen, and when she's older he blackmails her into sleeping with him twice. She rebuffs him over and over and over again. He smirks. He claims that she was asking for it. She says that she would rather be tortured and hanged as a witch than sleep with him. He claims that she wanted to sleep with him all along and really she was happy that he came up with an excuse like his horrible blackmailing trickery. This, this ghasty rapist and rape-apologist, is his whole character. Even later in the book when Tamar no longer hates him outright he continues to threaten her, manipulate events in order to be close to her, mistreat her, and warn her that he will take what he wants if she doesn't give it up willingly.
Which would be all right, I suppose -- albeit painful to read -- if it were making a point about misogynist bastards and the prevailing culture of the time and how much it really, seriously sucked to be a woman. But no. The thing is: Tamar buys into it. She comes to realise that yes! She secretly did want him to sexually assault her! She misses him horribly when he is not there! Maybe she does love him!
This was the point at which I had to actively refrain from throwing the book to the floor.
To make this stupidity even worse, there is no believable reason given for Tamar's feelings, ever. The sex scenes are never shown and barely even referred to; it's hard to believe that Tamar enjoyed it, even unwillingly, when all we get are her thoughts about how ashamed she is and how much she hates Bartle -- and then, later, when it's narratively convenient, this about-face. It's trying to be the age-old and dubious story of hatred and conflict being a stand-in for excitement and compatability, and it just doesn't work.
The choice Tamar is given is not the choice between two men that she is genuinely attracted to for very different reasons. The choice is between being wanted solely for her spiritedness and her attractiveness as a sexual object, and being wanted because she apparently needs someone to keep an eye on her wicked soul and also she could produce some much-needed Puritan babies.
So. I can't in good conscience recommend this book unless you are looking to incite some fine, healthy feminist fury in yourself, while incidentally reading the bare skeleton of a rather good historical novel that is struggling to exist behind all the shitty 'romance'.
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