Trigger warning for nonconsensual sex.
I have a lot of problems with this book. It was a rare Did Not Finish for me - it’s been over a year since my last DNF. But it was an ARC, so I promised a fair review.
The protagonist is the daughter of a desert king, who maintains power thanks to his control of the salt trade (hence the title). She is one of many daughters (the king has a harem), and her only purpose in life is to get married off to her father’s advantage and be (one of) the wives of someone who will support dear ol’ dad. She dreams of the world outside of the palace tents, but all she really hopes for is to get a husband before she gets put out to fend for herself at the decrepit age of 23. Plot happens, and she finds out that the secret behind her father’s power is a wish-granting jinni.
My first issue with this book relates to the jinni. Wishes are risky; if your wish isn’t phrased wisely, it will get twisted. Carelessly phrased wishes can have catastrophic results. Now, that’s a perfectly solid premise for a joke involving a man with a 12-inch pianist. For a book? It’s weak. Even Homer Simpson is able to handle that kind of an issue. Although, conveniently, it’s not what the wish twisting isn’t something the jinni can actually control (because reasons) so he can still be a decent guy.
Which leads to my second big issue. Of course the princess and the jinni start to fall for each other. (I didn’t bother to spoiler tag that because it only spoils the blurb of the book). And suddenly the protagonist is prepared to push back against the unjust life she’s always endured. Not for any particular reason, but rather just because … there’s a guy she wants to be with? I’m doing a very bad job of explaining this, but let’s just say there’s a distinct lack of character motivation here as far as I’m concerned.
So far everything I’ve described has been issues with plot. Might not make for an interesting book, but it doesn’t make for an offensive one, and this book was offensive.
So the lesser of my two serious complaints is all the racist stereotyping, and hoo boy there’s a lot of it. I expected some degree of Bedouin or Taureg stereotypes to be at play, but Thornton really leans into it. And she does so uncritically, which is worse. It’s not good at all. But it’s also not the worst.
So observant readers may have noticed that I used the phrase “nonconsensual sex” with the trigger warning up top and not “rape.” I wasn’t trying to soft pedal, in the manner of news outlets talking about powerful men having “illegal relationships with underage women” instead of “raping children.” It was a very deliberate word choice.
Because there’s one twist to the stereotyping that I haven’t seen before. As I mentioned earlier, the protagonist and her sisters are kept cloistered until they’re married off. But before marriage has to come courtship, or at least a proposal. So how does a prospective suitor choose his bride? He goes to the salt king, and if the salt king thinks he’d make a decent son-in-law, he is granted the opportunity to review all the eligible daughters. And he gets to take one that catches his eye and try her out for a few nights. A “try before you buy” kind of deal. Oh, you didn’t like your first choice? She didn’t do it for you for whatever reason? No problem, just pick another and take her for a spin!
It’s hard to express just how offensive this is.
I can handle offensive. The Handmaid’s Tale has an offensive premise, but there the offensiveness is the POINT. Margaret Atwood handles it respectfully and thoughtfully, 100% aware of what she is doing and why she is doing it. Here? It’s just thrown in for a little extra spice. I’ve said before how much I hate lazy authors throwing in a gratuitous rape scene to prove their grimdark bonafides, but at least that has a point, even if a cheap one. I honestly don’t know what the author was thinking with this.
Special thanks to my fellow mods who listened to me rant about this book on Discord and then convinced me to just put the thing down and DNF it. I owe you a solid.
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