Jason's Reviews > The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

It feels like the series increases in its juvenile sensibility. Maybe it’s because Alanna’s youthfulness made sense when she was a tween, and now that she’s an adult her relative lack of maturity (and the author’s lack of maturity in her writing) seems jarring and not as it should be.

(view spoiler)[Also…so she whines when he’s too ardent in his affections, she whines when he’s willing to treat her as just a friend. She whines when the prince wants to marry her, she whines when she thinks he’s found someone else. Aren’t you supposed to be adventuring, not…emo-ing about your dumb love life? Boo.

He only has a little magic, and it’s the ability to feel her presence cuz they’re such True Loves? Ugh. (hide spoiler)]

I’m also annoyed about how the main characters are made to be almost constantly perfect, with their only occasional pointed-out flaws being acting like annoying a-holes. I would like to see them be more like humans. And maybe for Alanna to not have everything always turning out great for her, with things consistently turning out badly for anyone who might dare to not worship her. Like her apprentice pointing out that it’s unfair how she has like a million Super Magical Items is a sign of his being a fool? So if readers might feel the same way, clearly they’re being foolish.

Not sure what happened to the feisty, fascinating protagonist of the first book (by the second, she’d already gone partway into a boy-obsessed perfect snowflake who had things land in her lap just to make the story Cooler rather than her earning them through merit shown on her part…but only partway).