I had high hopes after reading the Firebird Chronicles, but wasn't completely caught off guard by how much the writing irked me because I'd seen many reviewers expressing concerns about The Broken Land series (racism/colonialism, questions around consent,...). First let me be clear, my issues were not with the plot per say but rather some of the ways characters speak about their lives.
In this case, I just couldn't deal with the way the war in Afghanistan was discussed in these books. It was not central to any of the story lines since this all happened in the past, but it was this constant plot device to give Aileen depth. The persistent side mentions of seeing 'extremists who hate' and 'people throwing bombs at soldiers there to help' and 'seeing the darkest of humanity' etc just really grated on me. Then there are preformative attempts to patch up that harmful rhetoric by saying that locals also 'still protected their children' and 'showed so much love'. It just made me throw up in my mouth a bit and it popped up so many times in both books 1 and 2. Like that's supposed to walk us back from that violent portrayal of Afghanis? Shameful. And of course, we had to also hear about soldiers who 'wanted to serve their country', showed nothing but bravery, etc...Basically, making them sound like humanitarians. As a person from the Levant/Middle East, I can tell you that the 'serve their country' rhetoric falls really flat when the global north brings nothing but violence, chaos, and colonialism to our societies. How was the war in Afghanistan serving Americans? Other than serving as a massive-scale vendetta? Yes we've heard the 'liberating women' story too but it's hard to believe that when the world abandons us when we're drowning, dying, and being put in detention centres as we try to flee the disasters they instigated. So yeah, this really struck a nerve and it was so difficult to read. TA White really needs to crack open a history book. All authors have a serious responsibility to do so when linking topics around war, racism, and colonialism, even if they are doing so tangentially. One more thing- there is a brief mention of suicide that just..urgh... It described how people who die by suicide 'hurt so many of the living' and 'people left behind are often angry at them'. And then it's left at that! I get describing what happens in people's lives after a suicide, but to not then contextualize it within a compassionate or reflective lens just left such a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, this book struck many MANY nerves.
Finally, and this has nothing to do with the author, the audio book narrator just made everything worse. Aileen sounded like a high school student, constantly using annoyed and flippant tones even when it didn't fit with any of the contexts. It's difficult to listen-listen and take in serious reflections or conversations when the tone makes everything sound so immature.
This feels like a rant but it really pisses me off when I read for escapism and end up feeling so disappointed and frustrated...