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A review by simonlorden
The Queen of Rhodia by Effie Calvin
5.0
This fantasy series deserves so much love. I mean, come on! Pansexual princesses in love! Talking dragons! Goddesses and warriors! What's not to love?
The Queen of Rhodia follows the pansexual F/F couple who got together in the first book, now in an established relationship, with the F/F couple from the second book appearing as side characters.
Esofi and Adale are married now, and they never run out of things to do. Adele is finally learning how to govern from her parents, Esofi is working on establishing a university for magical students, and they are raising a son together, who just happens to be a baby dragon. But when both news of a dragon wanting to talk to Esofi AND Esofi's mother arrives in Ieflaria, they have even more to deal with than they would have thought...
I loved how realistically their differences and occasionally relationship problems were written. Esofi and Adale both have their own insecurities, and Esofi, like many abused children, has views that she doesn't even realise are wrong, because they were normal when she was growing up. I love how Adale doesn't judge her, but still makes it clear that those things are wrong, and Esofi's mother was wrong to do them.
We learn more about the dragons and also Lisette, who was one of my favourites in book one, which was great. Svana and her brother are back, which is also great! There is so much worldbuilding potential in this series, and I'm eager to learn more about the elves and the Nightshades and the Empire. I admit I skipped book two, but I'm fully intending to go back and read it eventually, and meeting the characters here only gave me more motivation (but unfortunately, not money).
That being said, there were a couple of things in the worldbuilding that felt like missed opportunities to me. In the world of the series, a third gender, here called neutroi are officially recognised - but at least in the two books I read, we don't actually meet a single neutroi who has more than a few lines.
There is a ritual called Change, where basically they can change one's sex with magic - it's something many people use to experiment or to have children, but it is mentioned that there are people who chose to stay permanently Changed, which would be equivalent of transgender people. Again, we never actually MEET anyone who is like this, or at least we don't know about it. I know it's probably a personal topic so it would be more difficult to bring up, but I don't think it would be a stretch to have someone drop a comment about it.
There is also a kind of weird scene where Adale mentally compares gay and straight people (those who are only attracted to one gender) to a woman who refuses to date taller than her. She actually corrects herself, because gay and straight people don't have a choice about their attractions, and it's clearly just Adale's opinion, but it was still weird and I want to mention it for others.
Finally, humans in the series are called Men instead of just Humans, which is... something I would have expected in a "mainstream" fantasy that replicates real-world sexism, but it was jarring to read in a book with pansexual princesses that has very different gender roles from ours. There is also a scene where Adale is speaking about a culprit whose gender she doesn't know and she defaults to saying "him" instead of "them" (even though her main suspect is a woman, so it can't even be a Freudian slip). It's not necessarily bad, but male default language in this world didn't make much sense to me.
Overall, I loved this book, and I absolutely adore this series and I'm eager to see the other countries that we'll visit in future books. The next one is titled Empress of Xytae, and the princess of Xytae was mentioned briefly in this book, so I'm excited to see more of her - although she's a liiitle too young for a YA protagonist.
NOTE: The book does give a trigger warning about past child abuse, but I didn't really feel like it was accurate/enough. It is true that Esofi is not a child anymore and currently living away from her mother, so the abuse is less obvious, but it's still clearly there in their present-time interactions, along with its effects on Esofi's own views. So, consider this an extra warning that the child abuse is a central part of the story, not just a passing thing.
The Queen of Rhodia follows the pansexual F/F couple who got together in the first book, now in an established relationship, with the F/F couple from the second book appearing as side characters.
Esofi and Adale are married now, and they never run out of things to do. Adele is finally learning how to govern from her parents, Esofi is working on establishing a university for magical students, and they are raising a son together, who just happens to be a baby dragon. But when both news of a dragon wanting to talk to Esofi AND Esofi's mother arrives in Ieflaria, they have even more to deal with than they would have thought...
I loved how realistically their differences and occasionally relationship problems were written. Esofi and Adale both have their own insecurities, and Esofi, like many abused children, has views that she doesn't even realise are wrong, because they were normal when she was growing up. I love how Adale doesn't judge her, but still makes it clear that those things are wrong, and Esofi's mother was wrong to do them.
We learn more about the dragons and also Lisette, who was one of my favourites in book one, which was great. Svana and her brother are back, which is also great! There is so much worldbuilding potential in this series, and I'm eager to learn more about the elves and the Nightshades and the Empire. I admit I skipped book two, but I'm fully intending to go back and read it eventually, and meeting the characters here only gave me more motivation (but unfortunately, not money).
That being said, there were a couple of things in the worldbuilding that felt like missed opportunities to me. In the world of the series, a third gender, here called neutroi are officially recognised - but at least in the two books I read, we don't actually meet a single neutroi who has more than a few lines.
There is a ritual called Change, where basically they can change one's sex with magic - it's something many people use to experiment or to have children, but it is mentioned that there are people who chose to stay permanently Changed, which would be equivalent of transgender people. Again, we never actually MEET anyone who is like this, or at least we don't know about it. I know it's probably a personal topic so it would be more difficult to bring up, but I don't think it would be a stretch to have someone drop a comment about it.
There is also a kind of weird scene where Adale mentally compares gay and straight people (those who are only attracted to one gender) to a woman who refuses to date taller than her. She actually corrects herself, because gay and straight people don't have a choice about their attractions, and it's clearly just Adale's opinion, but it was still weird and I want to mention it for others.
Finally, humans in the series are called Men instead of just Humans, which is... something I would have expected in a "mainstream" fantasy that replicates real-world sexism, but it was jarring to read in a book with pansexual princesses that has very different gender roles from ours. There is also a scene where Adale is speaking about a culprit whose gender she doesn't know and she defaults to saying "him" instead of "them" (even though her main suspect is a woman, so it can't even be a Freudian slip). It's not necessarily bad, but male default language in this world didn't make much sense to me.
Overall, I loved this book, and I absolutely adore this series and I'm eager to see the other countries that we'll visit in future books. The next one is titled Empress of Xytae, and the princess of Xytae was mentioned briefly in this book, so I'm excited to see more of her - although she's a liiitle too young for a YA protagonist.
NOTE: The book does give a trigger warning about past child abuse, but I didn't really feel like it was accurate/enough. It is true that Esofi is not a child anymore and currently living away from her mother, so the abuse is less obvious, but it's still clearly there in their present-time interactions, along with its effects on Esofi's own views. So, consider this an extra warning that the child abuse is a central part of the story, not just a passing thing.