Down With Useless Boy Toy

I bought Twelve Kings in a Waterstones in London because I knew that my most of my digital means of entertainment (Netflix, tv, Crunchyroll) would be non-functional and-or unavailable, and I finished the one of the two books I brought with me much faster than intended (it was awesome; see my review of The Invisible Library). This one lasted a while because it took me half the novel to get into it. In short: I love the world the story is set in, but the heroine in the first half is another story. Ceda is an orphan who makes a living as a gladiator fighter and occasional delivery-person of probably-not-legal things. Her mother went of to kill one of the 12 kings of the desert city-state of Sharakhai, and was executed without succeeding. Ceda has spent her life since trying to get strong and smart enough to avenge her mother, while at the same time taking care of her best friend Emre who seems to be a dilettante. This much about Ceda is fine; she’s tough and independent.

What I don’t like is that the only feeling she seems to have is anger for the first half of the book, which gives the impression that she’s selfish and one-dimensional. She has one lover whom she doesn’t love (she says so a couple of times), but she gives no real reason why she still sleeps with him occasionally or why they started hooking up in the first place. With Emre, her childhood friend who becomes more than friends, there’s virtually no reason why they fall in love if that’s what it is, or why they’re so protective of each other, other than a shared childhood trauma. I don’t like Ceda with Emre, and this is a problem as he’s supposed to be her most significant person.

Ceda’s other relationships are more founded on emotion, and they’re more complex. Her relationship with her mother (and a few others) is told in flashbacks. Ceda had a sometimes mysterious childhood, parts of which get explained, but her love-frustration-upset etc with her mother is believable because there is reason and complex feeling behind it. The same is true of Dardzada, her mother’s confidant and Ceda’s sort-of foster father once her mother is killed.

Ceda even starts making friends with some of the Blade Maidens (the Royal Guards for the Kings) and with some of the kings themselves. These relationships are interesting because both groups are supposed to be Ceda’s enemies, but even she realizes that things are more complicated. When she finally does get to kill a King, it’s not all about revenge, and she feels sad about having to do it. For me, the second half of the book, when Ceda joins the Blade Maidens, and starts getting to know her supposed enemies, saves it and Ceda from being boring and unlikable. Instead I just get annoyed with Emre who is basically the maiden in distress for Ceda to save, and he knows it, so he gets involved with a group trying to overthrow the Kings (to prove his manliness?). He annoys me. Hopefully the next book in the series won’t spend much time on him.