Green (Green Universe #1)

Sep 22, 2009 Wealhtheow rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, pocmaincharacters, queer-characters

As a peasant girl, Green is sold by her father to become a courtesan in a far-off land. The opening is fantastic--lots of sensory details and thoughful world-building--and Green's courtesan training is earthy and believable. But once she leaves the walls of her training courtyard behind, the story breaks down. The plot meanders and circles, and Green's motivations are confused and often contradictory. (Mere pages after declaring that her mission in life is to prevent child-slavery, she angrily d...more

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Jul 28, 2012 Ayana rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: worst-books-ever, ought-to-be-burned

Major spoiler alert!
This is a nasty, gross, disgusting, boring excuse for a novel. I read the first 2/3 of it and had to put it down. This is what happens in this sorry waste of paper!(It doesn't deserve to be called a book.)
The protagonist, who later calls herself Green, is a 4 year old girl sold into slavery by her poor father right after both her mother and grandmother die. She is then taken far from her home to a secluded palace from hell called the pomegranate court where she stays for 8 y...more Major spoiler alert!
This is a nasty, gross, disgusting, boring excuse for a novel. I read the first 2/3 of it and had to put it down. This is what happens in this sorry waste of paper!(It doesn't deserve to be called a book.)
The protagonist, who later calls herself Green, is a 4 year old girl sold into slavery by her poor father right after both her mother and grandmother die. She is then taken far from her home to a secluded palace from hell called the pomegranate court where she stays for 8 years completely isolated aside from her horrible teaching mistresses, who train her in the arts of being a high lady through heinous beatings and almost psychopathic mental abuse in hopes that she will be chosen as their immortal duke's consort. Has anyone's Wrong-O-Meter started going off yet? But wait, it gets better! Eventually Federo, the man who brought Green to the pomegranate court, brings a new nice teacher "The Dancing Mistress" who is of a non-human race called the Pardines, which as the author describes them I can only imagine look like freaky tall humanoid chinchillas! Anyway, Freaky Chinchilla Lady basically teaches Green how to be a ninja, but neglects to teach her the responsibilities that come with that skill such as not randomly killing people! When it finally dawns on Green to escape she uses her super ninja high kick to lash out at the head teaching mistress, killing her. The head mistress definitely deserved some form of punishment, but I think the author could have found a better way than having Green murder her. After that she runs out of the palace and hides with Federo and Chinchilla Lady who are actually part of a plot to kill the evil duke, who Chinchilla Lady says stays alive through ill-gotten magics stolen from her people. Federo and Chinchilla Lady were going to use Green as a pawn to get close to the duke and kill him, but Green messed that up when she decided to kill head mistress and run away. So green agrees to kill the duke in exchange for the knowledge of how to get back to her homeland. Green kills the duke and sets of for her home, a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, and finds that her father has gone completely nuts and is married to a new lady who doesn't want Green around. So then Green leaves for the big city and on the way meets a priestess of some goddess who tells Green to come to the temple if she is ever in trouble. Long story short Green finds herself out of work and in trouble so she goes to the temple which is where i stopped because things got way too nasty for me. At this point Green is about 13, and she decides to join the all-female order where they basically kill criminals and are all lesbians and have lesbo sex all the time. in my opinion regardless of Green's sexual orientation, 13 is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to young! That's where I stopped (because it's NASTY!!!!!). DO NOT read this book! If you could rate it negative stars, I would.(less)

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Apr 13, 2012 Alicia rated it 2 of 5 stars

The book started off strong, but had some serious pacing issues. The beginning was a fairly standard child-training-to-be-awesome plot (pretty much every fantasy book which is set in a school), but with a twist, because Green is actually a slave and being taught against her will. However, instead of going where I thought it would go, the book suddenly takes a turn for the unexpected...in a bad way.

If he had just written the book that I expected was coming, I think that could have been quite goo...more

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Jul 17, 2010 Raiveran Rabbit rated it 2 of 5 stars

This story has an interesting flavour to it. This story isn’t happy, and its beauty is more the stark breathlessness of a plain ravaged by weather than the spiralling grace of a field of cherry blossom trees. There is beauty there, but the protagonist’s life is hard, and that description is unrelenting. Green is stolen of choice, and that theme of trying to make one’s own destiny is the pervasive one. The character is interesting if psychotic. The story is strange, but not boring. Be warned that...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Madison rated it 1 of 5 stars

well....that was a terrible book. I was thoroughly deceived, by both the cover art, the inside cover (which only applies to the first third of the story) and the first few pages I read in the bookstore. It starts out strong, full of detailed description and an interesting viewpoint and then....just don't read it. just don't.

This is not one of those stories where the book was awesome and the plot line depressing, but moving. This is one of those books where you read the last twenty pages and go...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Karen Ireland-Phillips rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Overall, I found this bloody fantasy of betrayal and murder quite engaging. Maybe even charming. That is far less macabre than it sounds. Even at its darkest, this story has a certain lightness, born of hope.[return]A very young girl, purchased from her impoverished home, is taken to another country and rigorously – and abusively – groomed to become a courtesan for the mysterious Factor. When she becomes a woman, the point at which the Factor will take her, the strong-willed girl mars her own be...more

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Nov 13, 2012 Frank rated it 2 of 5 stars

The only reason I didn't give it a 1 star is because the beginning was decent, and the backbone (only the backbone) of the plot was ok.

It felt like it was written by a Junior majoring in literature who needs to pay for her college so decides to imitate some elements of what I can only imagine came from the Twilight series (the *shudder* "teen" feel). This book has it all: mass simultaneous menstruation (yup, imagine a full temple of women of all ages, and I believe the word "gushing" is an adver...more

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Feb 08, 2012 drey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads, fantasy

This one’s been floating in and out of the house for a while – ever since the sequel, Endurance, showed up on my doorstep…

drey’s thoughts:

Green is the story of a girl who’s bought, brought to a land across the seas from her home, and trained to be the best courtesan in Copper Downs. She can read and write, cook for kings, sew for queens, dance like an angel. She can also hold a grudge.

When Green decides enough is enough, she does the only thing she knows will get her out of this form of captivit...more

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Dec 24, 2011 Courtney Crites rated it 1 of 5 stars

I couldn't actually finish this book. I couldn't get past the fact that the big conflict was started off by a plot hole you could drive a truck through.

The book starts out with a solid foothold into the admittedly interesting world, and sets the tone (dreary and unforgiving) quite well. The MC is a small girl, living in abject poverty in a small village, when a tall, pale man comes round one day. And really, when has that ever ended well for the natives? He buys her, and drags her from her home...more I couldn't actually finish this book. I couldn't get past the fact that the big conflict was started off by a plot hole you could drive a truck through.

The book starts out with a solid foothold into the admittedly interesting world, and sets the tone (dreary and unforgiving) quite well. The MC is a small girl, living in abject poverty in a small village, when a tall, pale man comes round one day. And really, when has that ever ended well for the natives? He buys her, and drags her from her home and everything she has ever known. Then Lake spends an almost excruciating amount of time having the reader watch the start of breaking the MC (forcing her to speak the new language, abandoning her customs, ect.) The pale man makes it known that while the MC is very quick witted, all he wants from her is her compliance. You find out that she is going to be put into training at this House, to make her a great lady. Which is not explained in any great detail, rather both the MC and the reader are left to wonder what exactly is happening and why.

So the MC is turned over to the teachers. Or, the cast of hateful bitches, as I came to think of them. Her teachers at the house are abusive to the ninth degree. They beat her, starve her, insult her, and generally do any and everything to make her life horrible, and rid her of her pesky native culture. Here Lake seems to take pride in the minutia of his research, going on and on about the skills the MC learns and how they are taught to her. Details of her introduction to baking, sewing, writing, reading are laid out for us in the very distant, but oddly personal style of narration that is one of the hallmarks of this book. (But no matter how interesting, these long chapters of her learning, while they do emphasize the teachers cruelty, probably do nothing for the plot in the long run.) The world that was presented at the beginning of the book is pretty much gone, and instead all the MC and the reader are exposed to, is the inside of the training house. All plot takes course inside the house. Visits from the pale man (who had left after handing her over) are her only contact with the outside world. And he seems to only visit for the sole purpose of tracking her progress and not giving any answers, ever. So, she is trapped with these people, and constantly bombarded with attempts to break her, and make her into something else. She does find small ways to rebel and keep parts of her heritage, but the description of her rebellion is almost lost among the never ending tide of training and cruelty.

Then she meets her dancing teacher, the very first non-human we meet. The dancing teacher not only teaches her dancing, but the MC is secretly taught other, not very lady like things as well. Things like how to sneak, and fight, and defend and hide. There are hints that the MC will need these super cool skills, but the MC and the reader are not told why. Is there an awesome revolution in the works? No idea. Well, if there isn't an awesome revolution in the works, why does the MC need to be a ninja? No idea. All we know is that there are several other training houses, and they are all abusing young girls into proper form in order to compete with each other, And oh, there is an emperor dude presiding over it all. There is a grand allusion right from the beginning, that the MC is going to be a part of something bigger, grander, than just being abused by these teachers and then sold off to be abused elsewhere. But they never tell her what is going on, ever. The pale man, while he seems to be in on it, never lets the MC in on the grand plan. She asks questions, and they are promptly ignored. The dancing teacher, even when teaching the MC how to be a freaking ninja never reveals why she is doing so. The MC is just supposed to go with it, which she does, but only because there is no other option.

So the MC becomes a secret ninja, and there is this weird scene where the houses and their captives compete with each other for the emperor's favor through baked goods, and the plot seems to be rolling forward, at freaking last. The MC is becoming more and more fed up with being treated like an almost useful animal by her teachers and a pretty wind-up soldier waiting for orders by the pale man and her dancing teacher (I wonder why.) And then there is a visit from the emperor. She is gussied up and put forward for inspection. Like an animal. The MC is enraged by the Emperor's treatment of her (he pretty much checks her teeth) and the fact that he names her. Names her emerald (I mean, my first pet was a guinea pig named diamond, so emerald isn't such a bad name for a pet.)

So she uses those secret ninja skills to run away, which is the very first action she has ever chosen for herself in the entire book. Not so coincidentally, this is the first time I actually give a damn or like her. And I've done this huge summary, because here is where it all falls apart. She manages to escape (with the help of the dancing mistress and other non-humans that I didn't feel like explaining.) And she finds a safe place to chill, but its made clear that she has ruined everything. The pale man and the dancing teacher and everyone else in the secret freaking rebellion that no one ever invited the MC to are all pissed. Apparently there was an awesome revolution in the works! And she was going to be their mole and mole and kill the emperor and save the land! Except now she has ruined everything.

Wait, what? No one told the MC anything. She was enslaved and forced to give up everything she ever knew and become someone else. She was smart enough to know that shit was going down elsewhere, but she had no idea what it was or what her part in it was. BECAUSE SHE WAS ENSLAVED. The good guys (and I use that term in the loosest sense possible) were going to use her like a pawn, maybe even cannon fodder, but they also expected her to just follow orders and be a good lady/ninja. The entire plot point, and I assume the the rest of the book, center around the MC RUINING THE REVOLUTION. And thats where I just couldn't handle it. The MC could have pointed this out to them, but she didn't. In fact, everything just gets more confusing from here.

This entire conflict arc centers around shadowy puppet masters who refuse to share the grand plan, who pointedly do not explain why anything is happening, getting pissed off because the person they stole, allowed to be abused and re-written, got tired of it and made her own choice. Never mind the revolution thing, because no matter how high the stakes or how long the engagement, you cant leave the people who will actively be doing your footwork in the dark. You can omit things, sure, but that level of idiocy in a revolution is not something I could not handle. It was way too unrealistic and a stretch for me.

Maybe the rest of the book is just made of awesome, I don't know, but I stopped there.
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Dec 23, 2011 William Bentrim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Green by Jay Lake

I made a promise I would read Green after I read Endurance. Well as I said about Endurance, this is one of those butt kicking female protagonist stories I enjoy so much. Green is a god ridden sell sword seemingly bent on self destruction. The book Green explains how the character Green ended up in Copper Downs defying and defiling gods.

This book also stands alone quite well. However I strongly urge you to read Endurance which is an excellent follow up to Green. This also was an...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Adam rated it 2 of 5 stars

For a story idea that could have had so much promise, man was this a mess. The story really meandered and bordered on incoherent at times. The setting was intriguing, with its clear parallels to real places and races of people, but there was never really a payoff. Plot elements that should have been glossed over in a couple of paragraphs were stretched out to dozens of pages, while climaxes that should have been built up more were dealt with in a few sentences. Even the plot "twists" ended up no...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Ryandake rated it 2 of 5 stars

ever finish a book, put it down, and think, whew, i'm so glad i'm done with that?

you know it's bad when you've read to the last 30 pages and you're feeling like a plowhorse heading to the barn.

it's not a terrible book--not the kind that makes you throw it against a wall--but it has some really nasty sentences. like:

"They went both one way and the other."

sentences like this drive me nuts. why not "They went both ways" or less succinctly "They went one way and another"?

and, admittedly, my attenti...more

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Aug 11, 2011 Jessica Strider rated it 3 of 5 stars

Pros: vividly real world, mostly sympathetic protagonist

Cons: entirely character driven, unevenly paced

Green was bought from her father at a very young age and raised in another country to be a nobleman's wife. Trained to numerous arts: cooking, sewing, music and more, it's her dance lessons and the illicit classes of stealth, falling and climbing, and the mistress who teaches them, that offer her a taste of the freedom and choice she longs for. When the time comes for her to leave her training...more Pros: vividly real world, mostly sympathetic protagonist

Cons: entirely character driven, unevenly paced

Green was bought from her father at a very young age and raised in another country to be a nobleman's wife. Trained to numerous arts: cooking, sewing, music and more, it's her dance lessons and the illicit classes of stealth, falling and climbing, and the mistress who teaches them, that offer her a taste of the freedom and choice she longs for. When the time comes for her to leave her training courtyard, she makes a choice that shows her that while you can choose your actions it is their consequences that decide your future.

The world building is fantastic, with the people of different continents having different skin tones, languages, cultures, food preferences, sexual preferences, etc.. The history was loosely done though I got the impression that this was because Green didn't know much of it and therefore it would have been out of place to add more, rather than because the author hadn't considered this aspect of his novel.

This is a book that will appeal to readers who enjoy character driven action like that of Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy and Piers Anthony's A Quest for Chameleon. And like the latter, the almost aimless wanderings and life of the protagonist have purpose, when seen from the end (though to a lesser extent than Quest).

The problem I have with character driven stories is that, as with real life, not everything that happens to a person is interesting. Plot driven stories typically skip over these periods quickly, but character driven stories can't, leading to pacing issues where some periods are fascinating (like Green's two periods of schooling), action packed (her time as an aspirant and the ending), and times that are boring (her return home). Indeed, Green has an almost anti-climax half way through the book, after which the protagonist wanders for some time.

While she's a mostly sympathetic character, as a child taken from her father, her inability to grow up and realize that, despite the circumstances of her youth, she was better off in her new home than her old one, annoyed me. Despite constant observations to the contrary she held to her mistaken belief that everyone else in the world got to choose their futures while only she had to face misfortune and a loss of freedom. She held to these beliefs even after she left her court prison and found that her own choices had trapped her. That being able to make decisions for her life wasn't the same as being free. She was someone who held to an ideal that didn't exist and refused to move on. She made uninformed decisions and wondered afterward why those decisions were wrong.

Ultimately, Green is an interesting protagonist but not interesting enough to hold attention for an entire novel.(less)

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Aug 10, 2011 Mary B. added it

First and foremost, the main problem with this book is that it has two major conflicts. On the one hand there is the conflict concerning the Duke and his slave-trade tyranny, and then there is the conflict with the gods, and men who are avatars of the gods. I felt like the two conflicts were not very well linked at all. The first 1/3 of the book was dedicated to one, and the other 2/3 to the other. Another huge problem is that the conflicts take such a long time to set up and then end up taking...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Desiree rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished-out-of-morbid-curiosity, fantasy-and-fairy-tales, ya-young-adult

I was drawn to this book by the dramatic cover, and info on the jacket - the story sounded original, touching, dramatic, and adventurous. While it was an excellent IDEA, the book itself fell short - very short.

Jay West uses literary tools like a boy swinging a 2x4 board at the reader's head. Characters the reader is not supposed to like are described with multitudes of adjectives that imply "bad" i.e. hair like maggots... lips like a duck... and a great many more. When used sparingly, these can...more

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Feb 20, 2011 Vicky rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fail, fodder, ya

I really thought I was in for a simple YA fix. I was deceived and I accuse the cover artist. Honestly I was searching for a light read (usually YA is the best of fluff and stuff after a binge on Dickens and Proust). All I can say is "WTF"!! Really all the sexual action and the S&M was just "WTF", then I realized it's a male writer..."duhh"....
I really wanted to enjoy this book, great premise; girl sold into slavery but really being secretly made into a weapon, all the while it's a competitio...more

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Jan 22, 2011 Anthony rated it 4 of 5 stars

I described Green, when I was about halfway through the book, to a friend by saying it was "languid, but not slow." One of the things that amazes me about the book is that it covers, in 368 pages, three distinct phases of Green's life (in fact, several times I found myself thinking that in the hands of another high fantasy author, each section of this book would have been a 400-500 page book of its own). So the pace of the book cannot be said to be "slow." And yet, Green's voice as she narrates...more I described Green, when I was about halfway through the book, to a friend by saying it was "languid, but not slow." One of the things that amazes me about the book is that it covers, in 368 pages, three distinct phases of Green's life (in fact, several times I found myself thinking that in the hands of another high fantasy author, each section of this book would have been a 400-500 page book of its own). So the pace of the book cannot be said to be "slow." And yet, Green's voice as she narrates is melancholic, languid, pining for what she thinks she has lost. Lake takes the old "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" trope and really drives home, through Green, the fact that we never really understand what life is like for others when the only lens we have to view it through is that of our own experiences. Green repeatedly finds herself confronted with how her life might have been different, and each time it happens there is the potential for her to change her thoughts -- and yet, like most normal people, she retains her anger and her wish for something different despite all evidence that the life she was handed is in some ways better than the life she would have left had Federo never found her. Of course, it's not that simple, and I think in the end the best we can say is that Green's life would have been brutal and dangerous either way.

So the book may feel languid, thanks to Green's voice, but it is not at all slow. Events happen, and in the nature of the world, we don't always know the outcome because we're getting the story from Green's point of view completely and she is not a narrator who tells the story out of order. If she were, that great languid quality of her voice would be lost. Because she is a child of two societies (continents? they are separated by a vast sea), it is inevitable that Green will journey back to the land of her birth, just as it is inevitable she will return to Copper Downs to finish what was started. The reader can sense this inevitability, but Green herself drops very few hints at it. When Green leaves for Kalimpura, I did have a momentary thought of "that's it? Lake is just leaving this whole plot thread hanging to go off in search of a completely different story?" That momentary thought is to Lake's credit. It shows that I was caught up, perhaps more than I thought at the time, in what Federo and the Dancing Mistress were really up to with Green. It shows that a jarring, but perfectly logical, change of scene and storyline, was exactly what the book needed, and more importantly it was exactly what Green needed. It proves, as I said earlier, that events happen and sometimes we are not privy to the outcome. Especially in the type of world in which Green lives. There is no internet, no cell phone service, not even a magical approximation of those things. So when Green is out of touch with what is going on in Copper Downs, so are we. Even when she hints, from whenever in her life she is narrating this, that there were events going on that she had no awareness of ... she still doesn't tell us what those events were. She perfectly replicates the insular life she lead.(less)

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Jan 28, 2010 Jan rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read this book in an afternoon, put it aside, thought "meh" and completely forgot about it. I only remembered it existed when the library's overdue-book notice arrived.

The premise is promising: a young girl sold by her father, transplanted to a foreign country, shaped to be a noble woman/courtesan and, secretly, a weapon. The story had several elements I usually love -- a strong-willed female main character, several interesting settings, (no bog-standard fantasyland here), clashes of cultures...more

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Sep 18, 2009 Ben Rubinstein rated it 5 of 5 stars

Green is a girl with problems. Big problems. And it shows. After being sold off by her father at the age of four, she's taken to a distant land with unfamiliar customs and language, Copper Downs. I'd complain too. Seen as a “blank slate,” she’s raised to be an educated and elegant plaything of The Duke, a demigod who has ruled Copper Downs for 400 years. Green isn't exactly thrilled by those plans, and she vows to adjust them.

And as could be expected of any strong protagonist, Green is mad. She...more Green is a girl with problems. Big problems. And it shows. After being sold off by her father at the age of four, she's taken to a distant land with unfamiliar customs and language, Copper Downs. I'd complain too. Seen as a “blank slate,” she’s raised to be an educated and elegant plaything of The Duke, a demigod who has ruled Copper Downs for 400 years. Green isn't exactly thrilled by those plans, and she vows to adjust them.

And as could be expected of any strong protagonist, Green is mad. She is mad at the man who bought her from her father, even though he’s one of the few who show her kindness. She’s mad at her teachers who beat her when she’s disobedient. And she struggles to be mad at her father, whose motives for selling her she never quite can, or won’t allow herself to, understand.

Over the course of her training Green had forgotten her birth name. When she was deemed "ready," her owners give her the name Emerald. Never having known the word in her native tongue, she calls herself a word she remembers, Green. When she realizes how fully wretched her life is about to become, she slashes her face, ruining her precious beauty--her escape from her captors is bloody, and the blood is not only hers.

Green is about finding home and fulfillment. After she escapes her isolated life of rigid training, she flees across the sea to find the home she was taken from years earlier. She doesn’t quite find what she is looking for, as she realizes she’s more a creature of Copper Downs than her birth-home, Selistan.

Both adults and older teens will love this title. The low-fantasy setting will attract non-fantasy readers – there’s not much spellcasting here, just all-too-real deities that squabble for power leaving mortals strewn about in their wake. Slight problems with pacing make the book feel episodic at times; it could probably have been expanded slightly and turned into two books. However, one of the most compelling heroes I’ve read about easily compensates, which makes this an excellent book I’ll certainly be recommending. Oh and, the cover! Just look at that gorgeous cover!(less)

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Sep 04, 2009 Samantha rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the vibrant, beautifully told story of a young girl sold into slavery and how she reacts to the oppression as she grows. It's got a touch of Jacqueline Carey's 'Kushiel' series to it (minus 90% of the sex) - besides the initial story with young Green being raised to be a noblelady, there's a certain sense of elegant sensuality paired with a strong and strong-minded female protagonist.

Green is very well drawn - conflicted, confused in some ways, and despite years and distance, to some de...more

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Aug 24, 2009 Clare rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. One of her earliest memories is being carried away by the tall man, while her father, who never meets her eyes, or says goodbye, accepts a small bag of coins. The girl is raised in isolation, trained through intense study and frequent beatings to become a concubine or to be a rich noble’s wife. Addressed only as “Girl” from age three until age 11, she is raised under the sadistic and jealous eye of her jailer and tutor, Mistress Tirelle. Girl swallows her rage, her fire, her stubbornness and wai...more One of her earliest memories is being carried away by the tall man, while her father, who never meets her eyes, or says goodbye, accepts a small bag of coins. The girl is raised in isolation, trained through intense study and frequent beatings to become a concubine or to be a rich noble’s wife. Addressed only as “Girl” from age three until age 11, she is raised under the sadistic and jealous eye of her jailer and tutor, Mistress Tirelle. Girl swallows her rage, her fire, her stubbornness and waits for something, anything to improve. Hope comes when the Dancing Mistress enters her life and teaches Girl how to move. This early section is only about a third of the book, yet it was the most fascinating for me. We move along with dread yet fascination, waiting for something to happen, something to change, as Girl’s narrative, and the lessons of her many teachers make for a compelling read. When the factor visits her, and dubs her Emerald, I got excited about seeing Emerald maneuver through court life, politics and also be able to use her finely trained skills.

In one horrible night, Green escapes in an attempt to get back home, to the memory of her simple life before she was sold. Her journey home and beyond were quite touching and flowed naturally, but about halfway through, the book stops being enjoyable and just gets weird. I would have liked the book so much more if we had seen Emerald living the life she had been training for, and then perhaps using the marriage or courtship as a way to return home, rather than as a fugitive. The contrast then between her old life and new would have been even greater. All the lessons she received or had beaten into her were wasted, both in the characters life and in the storytelling. Is it lazy writing? Poor editing? There were brief scenes where the style and mood fit what I enjoyed earlier in the book, but I really was forcing myself to finish.

First part of the book? Five stars! Middle part? Three stars. Last part? One star.
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Mar 27, 2013 Alexandra Jennelle rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this. The phenomenal cover drew me in as it did for so many others, and the story described on the bookflap was interesting. Sadly the flap was only describing the first third (or maybe quarter) of the book. It was interesting-- the book has several interesting parts, most of them build up that lead me as a reader to believe that we were headed to some massive important moment of big damn awesome. But what happened EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. was that the build up was exponentially bet...more

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Apr 07, 2010 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, best_covers

whoever said to not judge a book by its cover could have been speaking of this one. within the gorgeous cover illustration lies a handful of potentially interesting ideas that never *quite* gel enough to really engage you.

a girl is purchased by a procurer, whisked to a far off land, and raised over the years to be a witty, educated concubine of the local omnipotent undying ruler. some of her teachers have more subversive plans for her than mere cookery and jewels, so she's also cleverly taught t...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: and-then-this-happened

This book is When God Was a Woman meets The Name of the Wind. It features excellent fantasy world-building with a deep commitment to feminist story-telling and the writing chops to back that commitment up.

The first third of the book, depicting the childhood and education of our heroine, is as good as any coming-of-age adventure writing out there. 4 stars for the first 120 pages. The tension of the story deflates a fair amount at the half-way point, and the plot meanders into a "and then this ha...more

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Mar 02, 2011 Cecelia rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have morphed into an internet shopper. It’s a symptom of the age of technology. Well, that and the fact that I don’t own a car. I do my commuting by bus and metro, on my own two feet, or by hitching a ride with friends. Ergo, I don’t usually shop in brick-and-mortar bookstores. When I actually do go to a bookstore, I can easily get caught up in the wonder of ‘so many new books in one place!’

Let’s recap: physical bookstores are dangerous. I am liable to pick up any pretty book that catches my e...more I have morphed into an internet shopper. It’s a symptom of the age of technology. Well, that and the fact that I don’t own a car. I do my commuting by bus and metro, on my own two feet, or by hitching a ride with friends. Ergo, I don’t usually shop in brick-and-mortar bookstores. When I actually do go to a bookstore, I can easily get caught up in the wonder of ‘so many new books in one place!’

Let’s recap: physical bookstores are dangerous. I am liable to pick up any pretty book that catches my eye and wander to the cash register with it. I’m not so likely to do that online. In fact, when I shop online I usually search for books I’ve heard about from fellow bloggers (thanks for all the amazing suggestions, by the way!). BUT. I went to a bookstore the other day and actually touched real books, and Green is the one I came away with, despite having never heard of it before that day, and having no recommendation beyond a blurb by Mary Robinette Kowal on the back cover. You’ll remember Ms. Kowal from the insanely awesome Shades of Milk and Honey. Yes, that one.

I haven’t read truly enjoyable first-person narrative in a while. I tend to have a hard time with it – the unreliable narrator issue, flashback scenes and narrowed focus put me off. [insert obvious question: but don’t I read a LOT of YA novels? And aren’t they KNOWN for first person?] Part of the reason I bought this book was that the first two pages were compelling, and Green’s voice was authentic. I felt the dust and the heat, I heard the bells. I could see the scene – almost be a part of it through Green’s eyes – in a way that I haven’t since my experience with the first chapter of Alex Bracken’s Brightly Woven. It had slight shadings of Memoirs of a Geisha, the tiniest of flavors from The Good Earth – mostly in a descriptive sense.

But even as Green succeeded as a first person account of a girl being raised as a courtesan and trained on the side as a fighter, it was uneven in other respects. The book captured a lot of the uncertainty of finding yourself, finding a goal to live for and a way to move forward that happens as a teenager. What it didn’t do was convince me that Green had any emotional connection to other characters (and I know she was meant to). Secondary characters were perforce slighted in stage time, and felt like flimsy paper stand-ins for real people.

The book also contained a lot of ‘mature content.’ Let me be clear: GREEN IS NOT A YA NOVEL. There’s sex, violence, violence AND sex, among other things. Regardless of the moral compass of each character and/or the specific reader, such content can work in a novel, or it can seem out of place and weird. In Green, it worked part of the time, and in other parts felt like a teenage boy’s favorite skeezy dream. I was unimpressed.

Let’s review: Green was really interesting. I read fantasy and science fiction a lot, and yet I haven’t read something like this in a long time, if ever. I read it the whole way through, even though I objected strongly to certain material, and felt that portions of the novel lagged. I contemplated it for days to find out why I reacted negatively sometimes, and why other pieces spoke to me so clearly. In the end, I’d dub it a book I ‘like,’ but not one that I will return to.

Recommended for: those who like their stories a with a touch of the exotic and a strong lashing of dark content, enthusiasts of god/goddess myths in literature, and fans of a strong first-person narrator in an epic fantasy tale.
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Apr 20, 2010 Clare rated it 1 of 5 stars

I read most of this book within a few days, but I couldn't bring myself to finish it. The story is about a girl sold by her poor father to a pale merchant who takes her across the sea. Since the story is told from her perspective and she's about three years old, one would assume she'd think like a three year old, not one who's closer to twenty.

She grows up in the Pomegranate Court, raised by her instructors. I kept waiting for her to jump forward in the years and summarize the long boring lesson...more

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Mar 01, 2010 Katie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

This book was weird, just...really weird. The first part was really interesting - the part where Green was being trained up in the Pomegranate Court to be a courtesan. I was really surprised when I noticed that the author of the book was a man, since he did an excellent job of understanding and portraying the trials of a young girl coming of age. However, after Green left the Pomegranate Court (which happens about a third of the way through the book) and began wandering the world things get real...more

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Jun 03, 2010 Eliyanna Kaiser rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, lgbt-interest, steam-punk

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I knew that I had to read "Green" and I'm very glad I did. Once I heard the heroine was a courtesan, I really wanted to see how a sex worker would be portrayed as the heroine of a fantasy novel.

*slight spoilers*

I was disappointed to find out that she wasn't so much a courtesan as a girl trained to be a courtesan who fought to escape that path. My disappointment is not with the story or the author. It's more that I really want to read that story--where a sex worker is actually a sex worker and ac...more

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Mar 23, 2010 Mayakda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, read-in-2010-03, read-in-2010

For some reason the cover + title had me convinced this was SF, and I had to read several chapters before I conceded that it was fantasy.
This was well-written, on the literary side. The world-building was excellent. The first part reads rather like a version of Memoirs of a Geisha, but then sort of turns into Assassin's Apprentice. And it has a protagonist lifted from a dusty Asian-like paddy. It's got some feminist sensibilities. It sounds like a book I ought to love. But for some reason I don'...more

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Jul 27, 2010 Dianna rated it 3 of 5 stars

This books is essentially in three parts, though it's not delineated so nicely for the reader. The first part covers Green's youth in which she's sold to a foreigner by her farmer single father, brought across the ocean, and trained to be an exotic wife for sale to noble rich white guys. She's also secretly being trained by one of her teachers for some unknown purpose. This is a cool enjoyable part of the book. She's fun to get to know and read about. The program she's in is fascinating. Then, t...more This books is essentially in three parts, though it's not delineated so nicely for the reader. The first part covers Green's youth in which she's sold to a foreigner by her farmer single father, brought across the ocean, and trained to be an exotic wife for sale to noble rich white guys. She's also secretly being trained by one of her teachers for some unknown purpose. This is a cool enjoyable part of the book. She's fun to get to know and read about. The program she's in is fascinating. Then, there occurs what should be two huge turning points in her life. The cover gives it away for you: she disfigures her face by cutting into it so that she can no longer be sold as a wife and runs away. The author spent about that much time on this massive giant event. I won't give away the other turning point, but it suffices to say that only about a paragraph is spent on what is the biggest event of her life.

The entire book is that way. It seems to be about Green (it is titled after her), and it spends significant time following her around, but when it comes time for "action", the author just states what happens with no emotion or impact. I had to re-read several times when she cut her face open, because I thought surely it had to matter. I had to make it sink in for me, because the author didn't help me out there.

**Spoilers**

The second part is her moving around trying to find home (and failing where she expects, but succeeding where she doesn't) and eventually becoming an assassin. The third part is a disjointed theology on the gods of this world mixed in with a little action and plot and Green's return to her foster country to finish a job she started.

The folks who knock the book for being too sexy probably just didn't read the summary of the book. I picked it up as a readalike for Kushiel on Tapley's (somewhat trepidatious) recommendation, and the first third of it (and to some extent the second) are so.

It's a fun book in the beginning and a bit difficult to finish, but I chugged through. I would read another book that was set in the world that the book starts in the first third, but wouldn't bother with a continuation of Green's life. I didn't find the woman she became to be worth reading about.(less)

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title link	preview: Green
avg rating	preview: Green Goodreads rating: 3.19 (977 ratings)
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Green (Green Universe #1)

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