Book Review: The Untold Tale
While I was flying all over the country (seriously, I’ve hit each cardinal point in the past week), I read through a lot of books and figured I’d give you guys a breakdown on some of them.
I picked up The Untold Tale by J.M. Frey while i was in Toronto. Well, actually, Bakka Pheonix only had the second two in the trilogy there, but I wouldn’t have heard about it if it wasn’t for the lovely people there! Seriously, go check out their store, it is all Science Fiction and Fantasy, we only got to do one floor because it was all so good, we spent close to $200 CAD while there.
The Untold Tale is told from a first person perspective, which can be hard to pull off, given some of the subject matter is starts to discuss. However, Ms. Frey navigates it wonderfully. It talks about abuse, rape, homosexuality, and societal pressures all in a way that give both the character you are hearing it from a lot to digest and the other main character a lot of respect.
Forsyth Turn is our hero, however he is a secondary character in real life. Seriously, you are reading a book inside of a book, where Lucy Piper or Pip gets sucked into it due to her knowledge of the world and using her knowledge of it for her PhD. As Forsyth starts to put together the pieces and Pip starts to find her way home, they realize they may not want to be separated from one another.
Along the way there is also family reconciliation, a main character that realizes he doesn’t have to be a homophobic, misogynistic asshat in order to do his job well, and a love lost sidekick who finds his way. The amount of agency these characters don’t have in the beginning of the book and you realize the goal is to not give them by the end, the harder you root for them.
There is a lot of romance here. Pip is kind of in a refrigerator in that Forsyth only really steps up because of her. However, they do start to work together and Forsyth learns to be a hero in his own right and in his own way, shedding the secondary character mantle while him and Pip become the heroes of their own story.
If you love romantic adventures but don’t want nearly the graphic detail of some books that are out there when it comes to sex scenes, this would be a great pick up for you. If you like the satirical nature of a book like Red Shirts, then I would also advocate this would be up your alley. If you like seeing literary theory talked about in terms of feminism and breaking the mold, I’m going to hold off until I get through the other two, but this is looking to be a good start as well.
