A review by lassarina
The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

3.0

A retelling of King Lear that interrogates all the ways that said King is a garbage fire, while poking at how each of his daughters is what he made her to be. I tried to read this in November 2019 and failed, but a second go in August 2021 was more successful. It's a slow book, rich with descriptions of the land and the magic that binds it, and that magic is red in tooth and claw, not sanitized and lovely. I liked the questions about selfhood and rulership, and found it pretty satisfying in terms of the giant middle finger it aimed at Lear himself.