Two 2022 #ownvoices debuts about the relationships between a mother and daughter. Two books that, while compelling, sadly didn’t quite work for me.
On the positive side, both Daughter of the Moon Goddess and Daughters of the Deer are highly original. Sue Lynn Tan’s mythic retelling of Xingyin’s quest to free her mother Chang’e, the Chinese moon goddess, from imprisonment, and the queer historical novel that Danielle Daniel has constructed about her 17th century Algonquin and Métis ancestors are fresh and engaging. I read both books in a matter of days and they continually retained my interest – not an easy task these days! I’m also thrilled that their debuts are being so well received and highly sought after (at least here in Canada where both books have waiting lists at the local library) and hope that this helps pave the way for more diverse stories to be told.
Are both of these titles solidly good debuts? Yes. Would I read additional books by both authors? Probably. Are these titles very obviously the authors’ debuts*? Also yes. Daughter of the Moon Goddess and Daughters of the Deer merit a 3.5 star rating for me, but I rounded down on Goodreads due to criticisms about the writing style and use of tropes played straight (Moon Goddess) and POV choices and pacing (Deer).
* Danielle Daniel is the author of picture book Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox, but this is her first novel.
Let’s start with Daughter of the Moon Goddess. There’s been a lot of discussion recently about how adult fantasy books by women, and especially BIPOC women, are too often categorized as YA Fantasy, even when the content and tone of the book do not merit it (ex. Kuang’s The Poppy War). Then along comes this book, which is clearly being marketed as Adult Fantasy and is even targeting the same fantasy crossover into popular fiction market as Circe, yet the writing style feels aimed at a Young Adult audience! I’m not in the publishing industry so I have no idea what factors go into choosing to market to a YA or an adult audience, but this feels to me like a YA book that is being marketed at adults.
Daughter of the Moon Goddess also feels like a throwback, and not in a rose-tinted nostalgia kind of way. We have Xingyin, a chosen one “strong female” protagonist who seems to master each new skill she tries. She’s an expert archer, musician, warrior, and magic-user, who manages to attract the attention of three eligible bachelors. There’s even a love triangle between Xingyin and two of these men! What is this, 2014? I just wish Sue Lynn Tan had subverted or played with tropes in her retelling rather than playing them all straight. And while I’m on the subject of straightness, this is an extremely heteronormative book with only blink-and-you-miss-it background mentions of queerness, something that added to my throwback impression of this book.
Also adding to the Young Adult vibe is the lack of introspection. Although it’s told in first person, Daughter of the Moon Goddess moves from plot point to plot point without giving its characters, and especially protagonist Xingyin, time to breathe and assess. I wanted to feel invested in this story, I wanted to care deeply about Xingyin’s quest and her relationships, but characters are rescued from danger before the weight of peril even has a chance to sink in.
Despite my criticisms I had a good time reading this book! It’s quick-paced, the setting is well sketched with some lovely imagery, and there are some interesting twists and turns. Is it worth your time? If you’re looking for a high fantasy with depth and weighty themes to it, maybe not, but if you want an enjoyable diversion give it a go.
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I’ve never read anything quite like Danielle Daniel’s Daughters of the Deer. It’s decidedly not a Young Adult book and I’d urge those who are considering reading it to heed the content warnings (…which I can’t find listed anywhere. Huh.) because it includes homophobia, corrective rape, domestic violence, the long history of violence against indigenous women, and suicide. With such weighty subject matter, I expected to be heartsick and haunted by Daughters of the Deer. I wasn’t. I appreciated it, I admired its originality and what it’s trying to accomplish, and I felt for the characters of course, but I wasn’t profoundly moved.
My criticisms with this book mostly lie in its choice and deployment of point-of-view characters, and in its pacing.
For the first half of Daughters of the Deer I was engrossed, sure that this would be a book I’d highly recommend to others. We follow Marie, an Algonquin woman pressured by her village chief/surrogate father figure to marry Pierre, a French settler, in order to strengthen their alliance and prevent further Iroquois attacks. Pierre is handsome and kind, but Marie continues to mourn for her Algonquin husband, who was killed in an Iroquois raid, and for their two stolen children. She does not love Pierre. Marie is caught between her duty to protect her people against Iroquois attacks and her loyalty to the memory of her family and to the Algonquin way of life, which is being eroded by the Catholic Church. I keenly felt Marie’s dilemma, her lack of agency, and her sorrow, and because we spend so much of the book in Marie’s head, she’s the most-developed and compelling character.
Then Daniel shifts to Marie’s French husband Pierre for thirty pages, and alternates between Marie, Pierre, and their teenage daughter Jeanne in part three. I can see why she chooses these PoVs, I just don’t think they’re executed as effectively. Pierre, arguably the most complex character in the book because he’s both a loving father/husband and a staunch Catholic whose devotion to his faith makes him intolerant of other ways of life, is an interesting enough person to follow, but unfortunately daughter Jeanne, who we meet as an infant and then jump to as a teenager, is under-developed. I know almost nothing about Jeanne besides how she feels about her girlfriend, and that’s a problem. I wanted to be invested in their love story but Daniel doesn’t spend time developing either character outside of their relationship. We’re told that Jeanne has loved this girl for years, but we get only minute glimpses of them together. It’s not enough.
A rushed epilogue seems to indicate that Daughters of the Deer is supposed to be Jeanne’s story, but it never feels that way. She just doesn’t get a big enough slice of the narrative pie for her story to be be as impactful as a queer tragedy should feel besides the obvious horror.
Told through simple, spare prose that, somewhat refreshingly, makes no attempt to be period appropriate, Daughters of the Deer is also rather black and white in its morality. Characters are Bad Guys, or Good Guys with few exceptions. I mean there’s a character who’s an alcoholic, homophobic adulterer braggart, who is creepy around underage women and beats his wife and children and another who kills animals, forces himself on women, and engages in corrective rape. You practically expect them to be twirling a black mustache or monologuing to James Bond about their villainous plot for global destruction!
Still, as thinly written as some of the characters are, I absolutely loved Marie and the people in her village and I applaud the originality of the premise and hope that we see more indigenous family historical fiction as well as more queer characters and relationships within that context.
Verdict: Despite my criticisms, I did enjoy reading both of these books and am glad that the stories in Daughters of the Moon Goddess and Daughters of the Daughter are being told. I hope they pave the way for increasingly diverse mainstream fiction.
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