Continuing with adventures in Narnia, [b:The Horse and His Boy|84119|The Horse and His Boy (Chronicles of Narnia, #5)|C.S. Lewis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388210968l/84119._SX50_.jpg|3294501] explores the adventures of Shasta, a young boy who escapes enslavement with a talking Narnian horse named Bree. Taking place during the reign of the four Pevensies, I was at first excited to read about what else was going in the land beyond Narnia. Now, Shasta is an interesting character and I really liked his early adventures with Bree, especially after they meet Aravis. However, this promising coming-of-age tale takes some awkward hard turns as the story unravels.

The first issue would be the glaringly incorrect assumptions made about slavery, especially when it comes to depicting enslaved individuals as totally hopeless and without agency. The second, and more pronounced issue, was with the depiction of the Calormen as unfortunate Middle Eastern caricatures. Given their role as antagonists, these elements are really amped for full villainy that mostly made for lazy writing. Most damaging are how this depictions just lowered the stakes all around. Given this aspect, I cannot say I enjoyed this one much.