Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta.Pluck the barb from flesh.
Clean. Sew with needle & thread.
Repeat as needed.
Phew. I'm finally done with The Lumatere Chronicles. I have powerful mixed feelings about this series. On one hand, it is the apotheosis of everything I dislike in fiction. On the other hand, I chainsawed through the series like a famished wendigo. There you have it, in a nutshell. I fundamentally disagree with the entire tone & structure &...everything of these books, & on the other hand they are an addicting, obsessive read. The answer to both questions is quite simply dramatic irony. The cards are on the table & you spend the book screaming at the characters to pick them up &look at them. The conflict in these books is driven by two things: the grimmest grimdark, like the institutionalized rape of children, or the dumbest of miscommunications. "Suddenly, all the characters you like had swords to each other's throats, because they couldn't take five seconds to have a quick conversation. I'd call it a classic example of Ebert's Idiot Plot if it wasn't so damn well executed, if it didn't....well, work. Basically this book is just "why don't you make yourself feel terrible & stressed out until at the end you get catharsis?" Which...whatever, I liked this book! All these books. They just infuriate me. They did succeed in making me like Froi, though, which is an awfully tall order. It came at the expense of Isaboe, though; she fell quite far in my estimation, especially from the first book where she was the only character I really liked. So. I feel really lukewarm about these books, powerfully lukewarm. Yes I know that is a contradiction. No, I don't care. This series is a soap opera of incredibly damaged people-- mostly, like I said, rape survivors, because especially in the first two books, that's what most of the main characters are-- but I found it an equally incredibly compelling read. If you like that sort of thing-- you might well, because that's a flavour of thing people like, I've noticed-- then you should check it out. When you find yourself gnashing your teeth, don't say I didn't warn you. & don't worry. You'll fall into a hole & ignore the world until you've finished, anyway. That's what I did.