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Finally have time to re-read canon for my Yuletide fic. The things I didn't notice when I read it and loved it as a teen ... it has not, thank goodness, been visited by the Suck Fairy in the meantime, but it does have certain elements that have not aged well. The two protagonists are wonderfully complex and nuanced women, but one of their mothers is ... well, not quite the stereotypical Evil (step)Mother/Evil Powerful Woman, about as close to it as you can get without being, you know, evil. (Thankfully, she has a very small part in this book, and will be off-stage soon, to leave me to focus on the two awesome protagonists.)
And I'm only thirty pages in and I've gotten several reminders that, of course, beautiful women can't really have women friends because of course jealousy will ruin everything! From my vague recollections that stops being A Thing pretty quickly, here, and I hope so, because it's really getting old.
Most of the book (so far) has aged very well. It's just that thread that runs through this first bit before the Adventure starts that's really annoying me. (Teenage me, being homely and geeky and having no clue and less interest in makeup and hair and styling, and thus having no clue about what Beautiful Women were actually like, probably just nodded solemnly and accepted it as Received Truth.)
ETA: Hah. Just spotted a factual/cultural error. In places with intense sun and heat, wearing long, loose garments that cover your skin but allow a breeze through can be better protection from the sun and even sometimes cooler than shorts and a tank top. Someone who spent time in the Sahara Desert as a child should know this.
ETA2: The worldbuilding and eloquence of language is not quite as breathtaking as I remember it being, but it's still pretty darn good. Funnily enough, while one of the heroes seemed so grown-up to me as a teen, she now seems ... a bit juvenile for her age. Though that may be an artifact of the literary style of the era the book was written in.
And I'm only thirty pages in and I've gotten several reminders that, of course, beautiful women can't really have women friends because of course jealousy will ruin everything! From my vague recollections that stops being A Thing pretty quickly, here, and I hope so, because it's really getting old.
Most of the book (so far) has aged very well. It's just that thread that runs through this first bit before the Adventure starts that's really annoying me. (Teenage me, being homely and geeky and having no clue and less interest in makeup and hair and styling, and thus having no clue about what Beautiful Women were actually like, probably just nodded solemnly and accepted it as Received Truth.)
ETA: Hah. Just spotted a factual/cultural error. In places with intense sun and heat, wearing long, loose garments that cover your skin but allow a breeze through can be better protection from the sun and even sometimes cooler than shorts and a tank top. Someone who spent time in the Sahara Desert as a child should know this.
ETA2: The worldbuilding and eloquence of language is not quite as breathtaking as I remember it being, but it's still pretty darn good. Funnily enough, while one of the heroes seemed so grown-up to me as a teen, she now seems ... a bit juvenile for her age. Though that may be an artifact of the literary style of the era the book was written in.
