Shelley's Reviews > Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind

week 7

This took me awhile to get into. It was, at the start, very choppy and full of vignettes, rather than a cohesive story. Once they finally got to the story, it was difficult mainly because here was this bright and intelligent and promising 11 year old girl getting sold off to a 50 year old man who was in love with her, to be his fourth wife, so her older sister could marry the man Shabanu had originally been meant to marry. At that point, it wasn't even the ages, because that's the culture, but that Shabanu had to be sacrificed when Phuban, her flighty 13 year old sister, would have been better suited to this life of wealth. Sigh.

And then they had a chapter of the sequel in the back, where facts stated in this book were changed! Like, they keep saying that Shabanu will be the youngest wife by 20 years. But in the sequel, it's only 8 years. They also say that Rahim has seven sons already, but in the sequel, three of his four sons died young and the last is weak and will likely die. Dear God, know your own canon, lady! That annoys me greatly. (Also the sequel seems to be in the third person, as opposed to first, and written very very sloppily. Not a worthy follow up, it seems.)