Thursday, May 13, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Curse of Roses by Diana Pinguicha

 



A Curse of Roses is a YA Fantasy book written by Portuguese Author Diana Pinguicha.  It's a book that combines a few tales, but mainly focuses upon reimagining a Sainted Portuguese Queen from the 13th century (Rainha Santa Isabel).  In particular, the story reimagines Yzabel, and her legendary charity and act of turning food to roses, as a young lesbian woman struggling with her feelings towards other women - in particular one magical woman - in a world where every religious and other teaching would say such a thing is wrong.  As Pinguicha notes in her author's note at the beginning of the book, she wrote this story for other girls like her growing up who needed to know what they felt was absolutely normal and nothing to be ashamed of.  

And at that, A Curse of Roses works pretty well, featuring a protagonist with an unquestionably good heart struggling with feelings that go against all that she's been taught, with a magical power that she can't seemingly control, and a double standard she just can't seem to let go of.  It's not an easy book to read at times, as Yzabel takes drastic steps to punish herself for what she sees as sin, but it's very well done and ends in a very nice happy fashion.  If the book has issues, it's eliding over the Christian-Muslim conflict that was an issue at the time and underlines some of the characters (especially at the end), and well, any book that valorizes a historical figure probably has some issues...but even so, this is a very solid YA novel that will be helpful for LGBTQ teens in areas of the world where such a thing is shunned, like the author's hometown - and as such, it's a success.  

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm, Eating Disorders, and Homophobia.  Yzabel in an attempt to deal with her own emotions physically abuses herself and has herself whipped.  Her magic causes her to refuse to eat, and due to religious homophobia, she and others struggle to live with themselves.  May be difficult for some readers.  

----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Yzabel, Princess of Aragon, was betrothed as a child to Denis, King of Portugal.  Yzabel is a smart, brave, charitable princess, who wants only to help the common people, be it giving away money or food, helping those ill with plague, or trying to deal with abuses by the nobles - and while Denis tries to reign her in for fear of her exhausting their kingdom's resources, he feels the same way and knows that she would make an excellent Queen.  

There's just one problem - unbeknownst to Denis, Yzabel, like her aunt, appears to be cursed - with every bit of food she touches turning to roses at her touch, making it near impossible for her to eat.  In desperation, at the urging of her maid Brites, a girl with some magic of her own, she seeks out a legend, an Enchanted Moura once said to have jumped from a tower rather than see the Portuguese conquer her home, and now magically trapped herself.  The Enchanted Moura, a beautiful woman named Fatyan, offers to help....but she can only be freed by a kiss.  

That kiss ignites something within Yzabel, feelings she has never known, feelings that she has always been taught religiously to be wrong - even as her husband is known to have affairs with her ladies like nearly every other man.  And has Yzabel and Fatyan work to break her curse, to help Yzabel control her own magic, she finds those feelings only growing, and threatening everything she thought she ever knew.....
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As put forth in the author's note, Yzabel was a real queen known for her charitable and goodhearted endeavors, who only wound up having two children, which Pinguicha uses to reinterpret her as a lesbian with little interest in her own marriage bed.  But as a woman of the time, in the 13th century, such feelings may not have been unusual....but they were hardly accepted as normal openly.  And for Yzabel, an educated young woman who has been taught to be very pious and religious (in the Catholic faith), the idea of laying with another woman is a difficult thought for her to hold onto, even as Denis is blatantly unfaithful with the various other ladies in the castle, even as his actions are not held to be anything out of the ordinary....even by the catholic priest who obsessively preaches against the sin and demonic nature of not just same-sex relationships, but even magic that would help the ordinary people of the country.  

And so Yzabel's journey to accepting her magic, to accepting herself, is extremely difficult, but Pinguicha writes it really well.  Yzabel is almost frustratingly kindhearted - she has difficulty ever asserting herself and her own wants - and this only makes everything even harder for her when her wants and desires seem to conflict against everything she's been taught.  She can accept others' hypocrisies, like Denis' unfaithfulness, and can accept her own sinful magic if it can help others - but for her own desires which would only benefit her own heart, it's especially difficult for her to realize that its not her heart that's the problem, but the teachings.  The hypocritical priests, her well-meaning but still obtuse at times about women fiancé, and a man with an agenda against magic and those who wield it do not help. 

And yet over the course of this plot Yzabel comes to accept it all and embrace it, and in doing so breaks free of it all to have a happy ending.  It's a plot that's again often difficult to read - Yzabel's faith results in her harming herself to try and remove those thoughts from her head and further results in an attempt to join her husband in bed that just proves she cannot do it (they never go through with it because he recognizes she isn't interested really).  But it works pretty well overall, and comes out to an ending that is happy and triumphant. 

If the book has an issue, aside from the standard one of dealing with historical figures who may not be as perfect as portrayed here, it's how it elides the conflict between the Muslims of the era and the Catholics who make up the protagonists - Fatyan, who is a lovely character in her own right, is one such Muslim from a conquered land and her difference in faith is completely ignored.  And the eventual antagonist character reveals at the last minute a never-previously discussed motivation of wanting revenge against the Catholics for their conquering of Muslim lands which just doesn't work...and oversimplifies of course the horrible conflict that actually happened in history.  

Still historical problems aside, Pinguicha set out in this book to tell a YA book of a young woman falling in love with another woman, doing good with her own magic, and learning that it is all all right...and she managed to pull off exactly that.  So for readers who need such a book, A Curse of Roses will be a perfect choice to help them through what may still be difficult childhoods.  

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