9/28/09

Lesbian Book Review: "When Women Were Warriors" by Catherine Wilson

LESBIAN BOOK REVIEW

by Cynthia Rodriguez




"When Women Were Warriors"
Book 1
The Warrior's Path


by Catherine Wilson


Women warriors kick ass. And besides, what is hotter than that? Be it the modern day ones, back in the day ones, all of them. The Amazons, the Suffragettes, all the Charlie's Angels, whatever. Myself being a "Vagina Warrior"/ "Warrior For Choice", I should know.

It took me a few chapters to get into this because the first thing is that these fantasy like in that time period pieces usually aren't my type of genre, however, I am pretty much open to all categories of books, so it's all good . Second, I was still in the high of the last book I had read which was pretty life changing for me. Of course, neither of these factors are certainly no fault of the author. They are my own issues which I have no problem admitting.

In spite of all of that, I did enjoy "Book 1", and look forward to the next two. Without giving anything away, I would like to point out of few things that really got my attention in a good way...

I really liked a lot of the characters in this book. Actually, most of them reminded me of my own friends. Strong, independent women. My favorite aspect of the book was the relationship between the main character, Tamra (a warriors's companion, basically meaning personal assistant who eventually turns into a warrior apprentice), and her warrior, Maara. It's like a Xena's Gabrielle narrating the story.


It's a coming of age tale of Tamra's journey from a young girl from an almost royal like family who is placed into the world of women warriors and on the way learns about herself, including her sexuality, her strengths, and loyalties.


At first both reluctant, but then Tamra connects with Maara, the dark, intriguing, warrior with the mysterious past in which an unbreakable bond is formed.

The story telling in the book is pretty cool. I don't think we do enough of that anymore. I consider it a lost art form.

I have to admit, the love scenes in the book were a little too "PC" for me and not enough "Bow chicka bow, bow". Again, those are my own perverted issues. With the novel's particular language those type of love scenes would have been completely inappropriate.


I would also like to put out there certain things in the book that I thought were highlights of it which I noticed were complained about in other's reviews of it, such as:


--- "There's no men in it/ not enough men". : Oh freakin' waah wahh wahh, HELLO, this is why it is found under lesbian books. Excuse my french, but fuck the men. They are in enough books. That's all I have to say about that.


--- "Too much drama and not enough fighting/war" : Which would probably be the case if women ruled the world. Now, is that really a bad thing?


When people are so used to bam, smash, thank you ma'am action in their media, something like this I guess would be a little too mild for them, so it's considered the equivalent of a "chick flick" in book form.

Warriors come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. It's done with a sword...or a pen, a keyboard, or one's voice.

Forget the haters, Catherine. You stay on your warriors path.





5 comments:

Kat Girl said...

Another great piece of writing Cynthia! How amazing the timing too (wink) I'll either email you or PM you a link. Thank you for another fine review! I'm putting this book on my list!

Unknown said...

Thank you "Kat Girl"! Nice to know some people are actually paying attention to my stuff...

Catherine M. Wilson said...

Thanks, Cynthia, for the review. I just want to let your readers know that they can download a free e-book of Book I of the trilogy (the book reviewed here) from my author website:
http://www.catherine-m-wilson.com/free-ebook.html

Sasha said...

Oh I have to read this! I wrote a thesis on women warriors back in grad school. This sounds right p my alley!

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