I've been reading Secrets of Jin-Shei lately. I have been longing for books with strong femakle friendships lately and oh goodness, are such things ALL OVER this book.
As always, possible spoilers behind the cut.
The story concerns itself with the ability of women to formally forge bonds with other woman through Jin-shei. this is a culturally recognized important bong which seems to carry more weight than being friends. It sort of feels like Jin-shei-bo are recognized as being like to family.
At first, I loved this setup, and I loved the importance it was placing on friendships between women. But somewhere along the way I lost track of what this means for the people around it and it seems to have spread until not only are most of the characters connected in this way, which feels like it lessens the importance of the distinction, but it also seems to be offered more or less at a whim in some situations.
For some characters, like the one who never really got taught what jin-shei is, it makes sense, but for others, not so much. The result has been that I've slowed almost to a crawl reading this book, as I'm getting confused and a little lost in the web of connections. I'm still liking what I do read, but maybe next time I'll just wish for a couple really good female friendships in a book instead of all this. :)
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