Emelan Reread, Number...2? 3?

[earlymorningechoes]

I think this was total reread number 2, reread number 3 for some of the books (possibly only first reread of Shatterglass?). And they are just as comforting and home and feel like they live in my soul as they were the first time around.

I came to Tamora Pierce books as an adult, somehow - I was that kid who had a different book on her desk every day in school (other kids commented on it) and I volunteered in the school library in high school, but I still...never read any of her books. I think I started with the Protector of the Small quartet sometime in college, and read some of the other Tortall books - I liked them well enough and was glad I had read them, for the most part, but they didn't Stick With Me the way some books do.

And then I read the Emelan books, and I was hooked. I loved the kids so much, and loved how much the adults cared about them, and how even though there's the typical "kids doing wildly mature things because it's kids' fiction" stuff, the adults aren't incompetent - they're incredible too, and the kids just don't fit into everyone's preconceived notions of the world, and their grown-ups lean into that!!

For some reason I got through Cold Fire and stopped (possibly because that's an intense book, and the fact that Daja has more of a personal relationship with Ben makes it so much more intense). I don't know how long it took me to pick up the series again (long enough to have forgotten that I owned the ebooks of the original four books and go check them out from the library, lol, and I believe that series of checkouts was right at the beginning of lockdown in 2020), and the books just...took root in my heart.

I love Lark and Rosethorn even more than I did the first time around, and I love these children dearly, and The Will of the Empress is definitely one of my favorite books. I want to read and write fic, I want to hug my books, I want the map of Emelan up on my wall.

Lives in my soul.

Comments

[lassarina]

I don't think I ever actually read Tamora Pierce. I should. If I can get some of my to-be-read pile shrunken a bit.

[earlymorningechoes]

The books are definitely showing their age in a lot of ways, and there's a lot of things I disagree with her on (in the Immortals quartet there's a romantic relationship between a sixteen-year-old girl, the main character, and a thirty-year-old man, her teacher, in a middle-grade book - and when called out on this, Pierce's defense is always "historical accuracy!!!" which is. Not really what she thinks it was, and also she's writing fantasy, not historical fiction). But they're such a wonderful cornerstone of the "power-but-caring" fantasy genre for children, especially girls, and they're the kind of series where I'd much rather discuss the problems they have rather than throwing them out wholesale.

Also Pierce has specifically come out in defense of her trans readers when JKR gets going, so for all that I disagree with her on, she's got that going for her.

[lassarina]

Honestly for most things I'm more interested in discussing their problems along with their strengths, than throwing it out. One of my favorite comfort series is an absolute raging trash fire of problematic on a dozen levels but it speaks to me really profoundly in other ways. I would recommend it only with massive caveats and only to someone who I knew would have it hit the same high notes as it does for me (so a very narrow possibility), but. It's still Mine and very formative, you know?

[chocochipbiscuit]

I also love the Emelan kids! I read the Tortall books first (the Lioness quartet) first, but bounced off them. It wasn't until Keladry's books (The Protector of the Small) that I really got into Tamora Pierce's works, but the Emelan books were the first series (world?) by her that made me want to sink in and give them a warm hug.

[earlymorningechoes]

*nods vigorously* I'm so glad to hear that someone else has that experience!! So many people who love her books and love Tortall seem to not even realize there's a whole other world out there (for which she's apparently still planning books, too!).

I want to give them a warm hug, they feel like a warm hug for me, and They're just. So wonderful :)