skye reviewed The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott
Review of 'The Lady of the Lake' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
For a long while, this book skirted the line between Problematic and Important, only to eventually settle firmly on Problematic.
The book's intention is not just to tell a story, but also to make the reader more aware of and empathetic towards schizophrenic people.
However, in order to do this, the author creates an image of an Acceptable schizophrenic person - white, straight, cis, young, talented, never has violent thoughts, never has acted violently.
This image is in the book often compared to the "really crazy" and "dangerous" people who do have violent thoughts, act violently, and apparently need to be institutionalised for it. This directly harms schizophrenic people who do not fit the book's image of an Acceptable schizophrenic person.
It's a Cinderella story of the boy who gets mistreated by his awful mother and her awful boyfriend and his daughter and, later, pretty much a whole town.
But …
For a long while, this book skirted the line between Problematic and Important, only to eventually settle firmly on Problematic.
The book's intention is not just to tell a story, but also to make the reader more aware of and empathetic towards schizophrenic people.
However, in order to do this, the author creates an image of an Acceptable schizophrenic person - white, straight, cis, young, talented, never has violent thoughts, never has acted violently.
This image is in the book often compared to the "really crazy" and "dangerous" people who do have violent thoughts, act violently, and apparently need to be institutionalised for it. This directly harms schizophrenic people who do not fit the book's image of an Acceptable schizophrenic person.
It's a Cinderella story of the boy who gets mistreated by his awful mother and her awful boyfriend and his daughter and, later, pretty much a whole town.
But because he's an art genius he ultimately finds a place where everyone loves him and protects him, and he doesn't have to do anything for it.
He doesn't have any character development other than switching girlfriends. Nothing in his life seems to be his own decisions, he barely gets a say in where his own story is headed.
Basically he just got lucky that there were well-meaning abled, neurotypical people around him who made his life better, because he's presented as completely incapable of doing anything on his own or making any independent decisions.
But that's not all!
The book is also terribly white.
Yes, there are some Latinx characters, and some others whose race doesn't get described, but it's a white, privileged perspective nonetheless.
At one point the main character is subjected to police brutality and later on comes the sentence "cops don't like white people either" which.. okay, it's true, but if you just put this sentence down without discussing it further, you imply that there is no racial bias in police brutality. You brush away decades, centuries of activism centering on this racial bias.
And just to top it off, the author makes "the biggest dyke" fall in love with the cis male main character. Come on.
Yes, we need bisexual representation, it would be nice to actually get that, but you can't just go and make a character Definitely Lesbian and then show to all your readers that that doesn't mean she's not interested in men! It just means they need to be Very Special for her to get interested!
This is such a harmful trope.
And have I mentioned that the drama in the book gets kicked off by a false rape accusation? Yep. And through one of the characters, we learn that false rape accusations are the reason why nobody ever believes actual rape victims. Which is just another harmful misconception.
Bottom line, this book is full of harmful tropes and other issues and it does not accomplish what it was meant to. I really wish I hadn't spent money on it because it's not worth it.