My relationship to the books is a kinda complicated. I was hooked as a teen, but feel a lot more ambivalent after a re-read because of the constant sexist garbage I spotted when I was more mature. Like, I’m kinda pissed that teen me was tricked into thinking the weird gender essentialism was a normal, healthy way for men and women to think about each other and themselves, and every other female character is a sexist stereotype.

me irl

imagine writing a 10k word literary critique of that gender essentialism when you were a teen and not once thinking that the essentialism was problematic, but just a faithful re-creation of the source myths. or even once considering the eurocentrist/colonial depictions of the non-whites. couldn’t be me