Jalav by Sharon Green
The Quick Take
Anything positive that can be said about Jalav is undermined by unbelievable characterization, terrible big-picture plotting, and dangerous rape apologism. And rape apolgism is inexcusable.
The Real Review
[Contains all the spoilers because this novel is awful]
If the books I read weren't decades old, I'd swear authors were lining up, telling each other to hold their beer while they penned a somehow more vile novel than the one I just read. Take this as all the trigger warnings, but especially those for rape and abuse.
Jalav is the war-leader of the Hosta, a warrior tribe of women. They're fearsome and live by a strict code and goddess-centric religion. The Hosta are quite content with their simple, violent lifestyle, but everything changes when unknown brigands steal their sacred crystals and murder several of their tribe. Determined to avenge their fallen and their goddess, they ride to war even if it requires entering the unfamiliar and contemptible cities of men.
That premise is plenty appetizing, and I was excited by the first few pages. Sharon Green's voice is potent, captivating, and impressively consistent despite the characters' somewhat archaic and unusual language. I also loved how Jalav felt unreasonably stern and haughty, yet feminine. She's not a generic malevolent hellion. She's a violent, arrogant, badass, no-nonsense woman. Emphasis on woman.
I started to worry when Jalav captures a man suspected of stealing the crystals. He's quickly proven innocent, yet the Hosta don't turn him loose. Instead, they rape him repeatedly and even drug him with this world's herbal equivalent of Viagra.
It's quickly made clear that the Hosta abandon their infant boys at the nearest city, and thus there are no men in their society. Grabbing men that wander into their land is their only source of copulation and reproduction.
Just in case my words fail me during this review, let it be known that I believe in enthusiastic consent as the baseline for sex. Anything short of that is a problem, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, etc.
But here's the thing. The rape of women is so common in fiction that it desensitizes us. I can't count the number of ForFemFan books that threw in a casual rape or a significant threat of sexualized violence for no reason. Sometimes when I write a review, I forget it even happened and fail to include it as a trigger warning for the book, or pause and wonder if it's a "bad enough scene" to warrant calling out.
How awful is that?
Do you know those guys who recreate ads featuring sexualized women to underscore just what ridiculous shit we accept as normal? The rape of male characters almost felt like that: a reversal to highlight just how unacceptable similar depictions of women are.
Much of Jalav comes across as a caricaturish reversal of traditional western gender roles and stereotypes. The Hosta view men as soulless, vain, and preoccupied with physical comforts. They consider men emotional and prone to incomprehensible outbursts. Men are to be used and doted upon with bright gemstones but kept strictly under control until the Hosta tire of them. Then they are to be driven away.
I generally don't believe in "guilty pleasures," but despite Green's voice and technical prowess, Jalav certainly felt like one. Most of its power rested in how it came across as a big middle finger, a rebuttal to the classic fantasy-adventure novel with the muscle-bound protagonist fucking his way to his goal.
And then everything fell apart.
Jalav and a handful of her warriors enter a city on a recon mission. Instead, they are captured and sold into slavery. Worse, the men who purchase them have a vendetta: they were previous "guests" of the Hosta and intend to return the favor and then some.
For the next 300 pages, Jalav and her warriors are raped, degraded, and abused. This treatment is vile and dehumanizing. Not only are the women collared and chained, but they're also tied tight into kneeling positions when not being actively ordered about to teach them their proper placement at the feet of men. They're only allowed to eat from the hands of their masters, as the master deigns fit. They're to drink from water bowls on the floor as if they were dogs. And much like dogs, they're beaten if they disobey.
It's worse than that, though: these men want to "break" the Hosta. To accomplish that, they must play games of manipulation and abuse to make the women do that which is against their nature. This might be something like taking a woman out into the cold forest at night, with only pelts for the man, to sleep. If the woman grows dangerously cold, she must decide between cuddling up to her rapist or freezing to death. And, of course, if she gives in and admits to both herself and the man the power he has over her by seeking his warmth, that's one psychological barrier removed. She's that much closer to being his mindless victim.
It's teeth-grindingly awful.
"But," you might say. "The book started with the Hosta raping men. Why are you so upset that the pendulum swung in the opposite direction?
Good question. As I've said, I am vehemently opposed to rape in all forms. Any gender raping any gender is awful.
There is a difference here, however. And that difference is intent.
Yes, the Hosta capture and rape men. They don't try to break the men psychologically, though, nor do they intentionally torture them. They also release them after a few days. They are so vehemently opposed to "ownership" of other humans that when one of their sister-tribes decided to keep men as slaves, the Hosta rode against them. And as punishment, the Hosta delivered their bound sister-warriors to the city as slaves.
(Okay, so maybe that last part is a bit ass-backward, but the Hosta aren't portrayed as geniuses.)
It's still inexcusable but a wee bit different from life-long rape, degradation, and multiple forms of torture.
The men's intent is extra heinous, too, because they begin to claim that they abuse the Hosta because they love them. Sure, they want these fearsome warrior women to wear silks and perfume and be decadent and submissive and nothing like the women they truly are, yet they "love" them.
And the real kicker here is that every single character we get to know who is owned, raped, degraded, and abused by a man falls in love with that man. Even Jalav, even as her abuser repeatedly proves his untrustworthiness and that he is unwilling to give even the slightest bit to make Jalav happy. Ffs, one of the last scenes in the book involves someone thwarting Jalav's birth control against her wishes, and her owner/abuser/love interest excited that he can finally impregnate her. Does it matter that she actively states that she does not want this? You already know the answer.
I don't like books with rampant sexism, like Taurus Four. And I don't like books that use violence against women as a joke, like The Duchess of Kneedeep.
But I loathe books like Jalav and Song of the Pearl that rationalize away or sympathize with men's violence against women. They're dangerous and cruel.
If you're wondering why I finished the book ... I wondered the same thing when I finally slammed the book shut. It's in part because Jalav and her warriors are always getting the upper hand on their abusers, only to lose it again. I was always on the hook of "maybe this time they put some heads on pikes!"
At one point, after too many rape scenes in a row, I did decide to call it quits. I flicked to the last few pages and started skimming, trying to see if Jalav's abuser ever gets what he deserves. Instead, I caught some talk about a comms station. I suddenly realized the stalwartly fantasy-reading Jalav was probably actually a post-post apocalyptic novel, one of my favorite world settings and also an uncommon one.
I couldn't help myself. I needed to see how the reveal was handled!
The answer: it was so stupid and poorly thought out and pulpy it rivaled what little I could stomach of The Dimensioneers. Worse, even more Hosta are enslaved by the end of the novel ... and in love with their abusers.
And if that's not enough to complain about—and it is—I have plenty more. Despite being a character-driven novel, Jalav is inconsistent. She lets her warriors put themselves in stupid and compromising positions while on a dangerous mission, and shrugs and considers it a lesson when bad things happen to them. She completely ignores the fact that these actions put every other warrior in danger while compromising their holy mission. And yet she's supposedly a brilliant strategist?
And for a while, when Jalav is first enslaved, she's cunning and uses everything at her disposal to fight back against her oppressors. Then as soon as she's sold to the men who own her the rest of the novel, she gives up, constantly thinking "if only I had a sword..."
Bitch, you managed to get three of your warriors to escape the slave auction under heavy, heavy guard without a stitch of weaponry. Surely you can pick up a log, wait inside a door, and bash someone over the head. Or set the tent on fire while the men sleep and run away during the ensuing panic. Or yoink an eating knife and use it in far deadlier an application than anyone would expect!
Argh!
I could go on, and on, and on, but this is long enough. Anything positive that can be said about Jalav is undermined by unbelievable characterization, terrible big-picture plotting, and dangerous rape apologism. And rape apolgism is inexcusable.
Add this to the pile of books that shouldn't exist. I can’t believe there’s a whole freaking series that follows this novel.
