Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce is one of those books that made me set it down, stare into the distance going, “Oh. Oh no.”
On paper, it’s got all the ingredients for a fantasy I’d usually love—political intrigue, spy work, gods meddling in mortal affairs. But the execution? BIG Yikes. We start with Aly, a noble-born protagonist who, through a series of conveniently bad-luck events, gets captured and sold into slavery. Sounds inconvenient. Except within an incredibly short time, she’s not only totally fine with her circumstances, she’s RUNNING the place. Because she’s smarter, faster, and more competent than the “savages” around her. Yeah.
It’s giving imperialism. It’s giving colonialism. It’s giving white savior—complete with the dynamic where the oppressed people are painted as in desperate need of this Very Special Girl to step in and fix their problems. It’s hard to shake the feeling that the book expects us to applaud her for doing the bare minimum while still being the center of the story.
A few of my friends highly recommended this one, so I kept reading hoping the narrative would turn itself inside out and challenge Aly’s perspective. It doesn’t. The more she integrates herself into the local politics, the more she becomes indispensable, until the whole “enslaved” premise feels like an awkward set piece rather than a meaningful exploration of power, culture, or resistance. Hard pass from me.
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