Book review: Fledgling

content/reviews/books/fledgling.md

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+title = "Fledgling -  Sharon Lee, Steve Miller"
+date = 2020-05-12
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ["books", "reviews", "scifi", "liaden universe"]
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+
+[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5585180-fledgling):
+Theo Waitley has lived all her young life on Delgado, a Safe World that is
+home to one of the galaxy's premier institutions of higher learning. Both
+Theo's mother, Kamele, and Kamele's onagrata Jen Sar Kiladi, are professors at
+the university, and they all live comfortably together, just like they have
+for all of Theo's life, in Jen Sar's house at the outskirts of town.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+{{ stars(stars=2) }}
+
+First things first: I did enjoy the fact that the universe has gender roles
+inverted -- with women being considered "strong" and "intellectual" and men
+being the ones that want to look pretty -- and this is not throw at your face
+at every moment, although it gets explicit by the end of the book, but by
+then, you're already good with it.
+
+On the other hand, some things feel... weird. Not about the genders, but in
+the story itself. There is some great secret, something the main characters
+want to hide, doing a lot of schemes to conceal it and when it is said what it
+is... it feels dumb. Ok, someone is clumsy, but that's natural in someone's
+family and WHY THE HECK IS THAT A SECRET?!?
+
+Also weird are some dialogues. At some point, there is one character asking a
+question and getting annoyed at it at the same time, like he didn't like to
+hear the question he just asked. Some discussions just jump into conclusions
+-- in the right conclusions -- which, again, feels weird. And there is a short
+arc in the middle of it that leads absolutely nowhere. It is throw in the
+story, affects absolutely nothing and goes away without a trace.
+
+Maybe it's because I got the book from Humble Bundle and jumped straight into
+the 12 book of the series (the "Liaden Universe", although this is the first
+book about a sub-series of one of the characters, or so it seems), but I
+didn't feel compelled by any of the characters.