Reader, I had originally planned this book review for March which is Women’s History Month. This is a book about feminism, March is Women’s History Month, it all made sense. But then it took me too long to write it, and you’re getting it in April instead. But, I think feminism is a year-round sort of thing, and I’ve been wanting to gush about this book for awhile, so we’re going to talk about Damsel by Elana K. Arnold, the best book I read in 2023, monthly thematic tie-in be damned.
Damsel is the story of Ama, a young maiden who remembers nothing before waking up in the arms of Prince Emory. He tells her that he has slain the dragon and rescued her from its lair. He tells her that he is her savior. He tells her that she is going to marry him, and become queen. Ama has no choice but to believe him, because she can remember nothing about her past or how she came to be in his arms in the first place. But when she arrives at the castle, she begins to fear that everything is not as it seems, and that being queen will require sacrificing everything that makes her who she is.
This book is absolutely incredible. I could barely stand to put it down the whole time I was reading it because I had to know what was going to happen next. It was extremely dark, but also extremely well-written, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it. Whether you love or hate fairy tales, you’ll find something to enjoy in this book, and it’s just one of those stories that I think everyone should read.
That’s all I’m going to say for the non-spoilery section, so if you haven’t read the book yet, go do that immediately, because spoilers are incoming in 3, 2, 1…
Ama
Ama was, she saw, both terrifically important and terribly insignificant, in equal measures, at exactly the same time.
Ama was very interesting as a lead character, because she was quite intentionally a blank slate. She has absolutely no memories, after all, and everyone around her is trying to shape and mold her into their image of who she should be. Everyone, including Ama, slowly discovering that she is much less malleable than they thought was probably the driving arc of the story, and it helped keep me rooting for Ama, despite her lack of specific character traits. In addition to her lack of memory, I think Ama is deliberately a blank slate because she is supposed to be something of a self-insert character for the reader. That’s the case with fairy-tales after all; the beautiful damsel doesn’t really have any other personality besides being beautiful, so the girls hearing the story can picture themselves in her shoes. This book takes that, and twists it into something dark. Ama is a self-insert damsel, but her story mirrors what it might actually be like to be in that situation; it’s not beautiful and romantic, it’s dark and unsettling and dangerous and not being told anything about your past isn’t comforting, it’s gaslighting. This really hammers home the twisted nature of what is generally considered to be a harmless and romantic story for children. So, it may sound counterintuitive to say that Ama’s lack of specific character traits made the book stronger, but in this case, and probably only in this case, that is what happened. It created this feeling that this type of treatment could happen to anyone, which just made the book that much scarier.
Emory
You see, Ama, it is for men to create. It is for men to decide. It is for men to speak. It is your place to listen, and follow, and gestate. And those are no small things! For without women to listen, how would the men’s words be heard? Without your fertile womb, how could my son hope to grow? You are important, Ama. Desperately important. But do not overreach.
Emory is a character who is absolutely, utterly despicable, but what made him especially terrifying was how normal he was. He’s not a cartoon villain; everything he does is something men do in fairytales, and in real life (aside from the slaying dragons part), and are rewarded for. This is what makes him so threatening; leaving aside the fairy tale setting, he is indistinguishable from the many, many men who think it’s their right to control what their wives do, who thinks they should be listened to because they have money, and who think they have the right to sleep with anyone they want. Emory is horrifyingly normal, which is what gives this book so much of its power. His villainy and the threat he poses is real, not fantasy, and that makes it much, much scarier.
The Queen Mother
And that is the way it has always been […] And if something is the way it has always been, who are we to wish it otherwise? Who are we to want anything at all? Who are we to desire?
If Ama and Emory are avators for their related fairytale counterparts, The Queen Mother is a much more complicated figure than that, as she occupies a middle ground between their two sides. Elana K. Arnold is far too clever to make her a simple “pick-me” girl, but she also doesn’t go all the way and make her an ally for Ama either. The Queen Mother has been consumed almost entirely by the patriarchy, but there’s still just a tiny flickering flame there. Because of these nuances, The Queen Mother becomes a quite complex character, one who represents different things at different times. She is, in turns, an indulgent enabler of her son’s toxicity, an enforcer of the patriarchal norms, a cautionary tale, a helping hand, and, an encourager of Ama’s attempts to find freedom. She’s multi-faceted, basically. I think this makes her super interesting, because I honestly can’t decide if I like her or not. She’s too complicated for something so straightforward as likeability, and those nuances really tie into why I love this book so much.
Traditions aka. The Patriarchy
That is the way of being a woman, to carve away at herself, to fit herself to the task, but, also, to be able to carve herself in a different shape, when a different shape is needed.
In addition to the fairytale elements of this story, which we’ll get to in a moment, this book does an excellent job of explaining the patriarchy and why it’s bad, because this society is a perfect example of it. The rigid reinforcement of the rules, of the subordination of women, of the enablement of toxic, horrible behaviour from men, and the rapid punishment of anyone who steps out of line? That is how power structures are maintained and how social stratification is maintained. It’s easy to blame Emory for everything, and he is indeed horrible, but he’s also just following a script, doing what his father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather and on and on and on did before him. The society and traditions that say this is okay is really where the problem is, and this book fairly directly calls out following traditions and societal norms to the detriment of those who actually live in the society. It’s important to note that many of the things that Emory and his court do are things that actually happened in Western history, no fairy tale necessary. The story may be a fantasy, but a lot of the worst behaviour is entirely real, and that is an indictment of our own society and the dangerous traditions we ourselves may be following.
Subverting Fairytales
And you will be a vase that will hold the most precious, the rarest flower of all-the son of my son, the future king. You are important, Ama. You are special, for you alone can bear the prince to come. No one else. Only you. Only the king can plant the seed, and only you can grow it. It is a unique privilege. A unique duty. To create a king! What more, dear girl, could a damsel hope for?”
However, the real meat of this book is the subversion of the fairy tale, and in that, as in everything else, it does a stupendous job. The subversion itself is actually quite simple: if I tell you the basics of this story ie. Prince rescues a damsel by slaying a dragon and brings her back to his land to become his queen, it sounds like a fairy tale, the sort of story that gets told over and over again to children. What Elana K. Arnold does, then, is take this basic outline and tell it like it actually would be. If you were a woman who woke up with no memory being carried off by someone you’ve never met who told you that you were indebted to him, that you were his wife and property now, and that you had no choice in the matter, that wouldn’t be a fairy tale. That’s a horror movie. By draping this psychological horror story in the trappings of a fairy tale, this book reveals some of the really messed up stuff that we just consider totally okay in tales we tell children, because “it’s just a story.” Now, I’m not going to say that fairy tales are bad or wrong, and that you shouldn’t like them or anything like that, I’m not going to be the “you can’t like anything from your childhood” girl, because nobody likes that girl. What I am going to say is that we should acknowledge that a lot of the traditional tropes and versions of fairy tales have some deeply messed up stuff in them, and they do feature harmful and toxic behaviour that was unfortunately considered normal in the time they were first being told. This book acknowledges that and it uses it to tell a kickass story. We should all strive to do the same.
That Ending
And in her bed, surrounded by cats, the queen mother watched through her window as a great opaline dragon cut across the sky and disappeared, singular, into the night.
I’ve shown remarkable restraint in not discussing the ending until this section, because OH. MY. GOD. That ending was so perfect! It’s probably one of the best, most satisfying, most complete conclusions I’ve read in literature and have just seen in the media in general. It’s one of those shocking, mic-drop moments that you just can’t forget. I’m including it on my short list of best endings with the end of The Trial of the Chicago 7, the end of Promising Young Woman, the end of Behind Her Eyes, the end of The Phantom of the Opera (musical, obviously), and the end of Heartless (which also features people doing weird stuff to hearts, now that I come to think about it). It was good, is what I’m getting at here. It was really, really good. I think part of what makes it so good is how visually visceral it is. It’s satisfying from a story perspective, tying up the character arcs, and finally, finally, resulting in triumph, but it’s also satisfying from how vivid the imagery is. When I think about Damsel, I’m going to think about Ama literally eating Emory’s heart, then turning back into a dragon, and that is a triumph. And then, just to top it all off, you have the queen, the only royal left alive, just watching Ama fly away, totally unbothered, and possibly about to take over the kingdom, a final image that manages to capture both sides of her personality. It’s just perfect, and I have no notes.
And there you have it, that is my review of Damsel by Elana K. Arnold. I am mildly obsessed, it’s the best book I read in 2023, and you all absolutely need to read it too.
That’s all I’ve got for you today, you guys should let me know in the comments your thoughts on Damsel, stay safe, and I’ll see you on Saturday.
Until the next time.
The Phantom of the Bookshelf 
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