It’s there to show off how awesome Rachel is for bucking it, and also to present contrived hardships. The culture of Baalboden is extremely misogynistic, to an absolutely ridiculous degree, and it feels like the only purpose is to delight in heaping all that misogyny-flavored angst on Rachel. I don’t know how else to explain it, but it’s something I’ve seen more and more lately. But it goes beyond that into…almost fetishizing misogyny. Just straight-up, don’t bother trying to reason it out, it makes no sense. There’s so much in this book that’s just so…weird. “Can you set up for one in the next book?” They should be soul-shatteringly in love.” But Rachel, see, she has to go find her dad, and she gets this boy she has a crush on to help–“ “Just have people talk about her strongness a lot. “Good, make sure you stress that she’s a Strong Female Character. “Well, she uses weapons, but technically–“ “So she’s a Strong Female Character? Those are very big right now.” “Her name is Rachel, and her dad is missing so she has to go find him using the skills he taught her–“ That fact that it makes no sense will be beside the point. “Um, I guess we could just say that the world got destroyed and this is what’s leftover?” “So, I’ve got this manuscript about a girl who lives in this fantasy setting–” I can just imagine the conversation that must have taken place with this book…

Left with nothing but fierce belief in her father’s survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself.Īs Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can’t be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making. When Rachel’s father fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the city’s brutal Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector: her father’s apprentice, Logan-the boy she declared her love to and who turned her down two years before. While they bend like reeds to the will of their male Protectors, she uses hers for sparring practice. While the other girls in the walled city-state of Baalboden learn to sew and dance, Rachel Adams learns to track and hunt.

Whitley’s review of Defiance (Defiance #1) by CJ Redwine.

Cj redwine defiance series