This story is told as the first person narrative of Aradia, a young girl, 13 years old at the start and 17 by the end, who is from a well-off family and the daughter of a major. As the story opens, her mother is about to leave for the front to join her father and is leaving Aradia with his sister. Their oddly Romanesque society is at war with a vaguely slavic/Russian empire 'up north', and they are in an alliance with another country called Charves (too similar to Chavs unfortunately).

Aradia doesn't get on with her aunt who neglects her, and the situation deteriorates as the city comes under bombardment and is eventually conquered. At that point, Aradia is now half-feral - her aunt doesn't even tell her that her parents have been killed and it is left to Thenser, a young officer and a would-be lover of her aunt's, to break the news. Aradia has been 'befriended' by a couple of unpleasant servant girls and renamed Ara, so when one of the conquerors is billeted at her aunt's house, she is assumed to be a servant too. Passively, she never attempts to put right this misconception despite having documentation which would prove she owns the house. She is "adopted" by a enemy officer much older than herself who is creepily attracted to her innocence and would be viewed as a paedophile if this book had been published more recently. However, he doesn't like girls too young so it is eventually down to Ara to "offer" herself and become his mistress. Then when the enemy is forced to pull out due to a resurgence by the Charv alliance, Ara finds herself in a nightmare retreat to the homeland of her abuser, rather reminiscent of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow but in reverse.

The rest of the story is about her various upswings of fortune and reversals and how she eventually finds a kind of fulfilment in the seeming regard of Thenser, the young officer who was once kind to her, despite his, by turns, neglectful or contemptuous attitude towards her.

The story started off promisingly and I had hopes of it not degenerating into yet another by this author where the female protagonist is sexually abused but enjoys it. Aradia is, of course, abused - and it is disturbing that she volunteers for this, believing that the goddess her people worship require this as a sacrifice in return for her secret help to Thenser. However, she at least fights back against other would-be rapists and does not enjoy any of it.

After the sequence when she finally gets to a place of safety in her abuser's homeland, reading this book became a real slog because it was so boring. When not acting to protect herself from physical assault, the character is profoundly passive and for a lot of the time spends most of the day asleep when she is not mooning around thinking about Thenser whom she increasingly views as the love of her life. Possibly this is meant to be a portrayal of chronic depression, but it didn't really come across like that. Whenever she seemed to be getting somewhere, she went along with other people's plans. The only really active thing she does is decide to find Thenser, giving up a life of ease with a man who is destined for a high-ranking position, shows her consideration and agrees to forgo a physical relationship. On her journey, she begins to make a living as a painter, thanks to help from a kindly teacher, yet throws it all away for a chance to contact Thenser. To justify this, she concludes that she wasn't very talented anyway, and it has to be said that it is the work of a young boy, a fellow pupil at the shop, which attracts the attention of Thenser's friend. And later still, while alienated from Thenser, she sleepwalks into the bed of his superior for no good reason whatsoever.

The setting of the book is rather amorphous. The society from which Aradia and Thenser originate has Roman features - a forum, the practice of dining while lying on sofas - yet isn't developed sufficiently. The various countries, including the island at the end, are confusing, often similarly named and appeared to be thinly veiled portrayals of e.g. Greek islands. They are vaguely European and nineteenth century, yet various gods are worshipped, including aspects of a goddess that in one place has echoes of Cyprian Aphrodite (she travels over the sea on a shell). None of it really convinced. And the role of women was in general passive, such as her aunt's behaviour, whereas most men were boorish, warlike or abusive. The only women who have some backbone and who get out when things look bleak are looked on as manipulative, and in one case likened to a lizard.

Thenser, the supposed hero is an unattractive character. Given his previous attitude to Aradia, the sudden switch at the end is not very believable. And the whole scene just before that with the prison governor showing her death masks of women he has hanged verges on the pornographic. It was that which forced me to deduct another star from my rating and therefore I have given this one star only as I ended up finding too many distasteful aspects to this novel. ( )

After their home is conquered, two people repeatedly switch countries and allegiances as they separately search for an ideal worth their constancy. Instead, they find each other.

The novel's characters keep asserting that heroine Aradia is a passive spark for great events, but the key to A Heroine of the World is that Aradia isn't passive. She takes an active role in her survival, despite the distasteful and unromantic deeds required. She deliberately marries an enemy soldier; she murders her rapist; she follows her lover over land and sea, and then she disobeys his condescending attempts to swaddle her. Aradia's aunt commits suicide elegantly in the beginning of the novel, and that act is an ironic counterpoint to Aradia's relentless campaign to live.

On the other hand, it would have been nice if Aradia's survival had been tied to her growing self-awareness and not to her obsessive infatuation with her lover, who is always abandoning her. ( )

something went wrong with this one near the end, and it fell apart. was she asked to change the ending to something she wasn't down with (thin adolescent fantasy)? or did she just get tired of the whole thing? ran out of time? what? at any rate, it went all perfunctory, and limp: in a different style altogether, and then ended abruptly. too bad, the worldbuilding and the characters were really interesting, until they suddenly weren't. ( )

Heroine of the world. An orphan, swept up by the winds of war, chosen by the goddess for great deeds...here's a story we know from myths and from fantasy, right? She'll become a brilliant leader. She'll free her people, find the sword, defeat the evil.

But what if we can agree that that's all bullshit? What if war - squabbling over territory or custom or language - is all essentially meaningless? What if it's sometimes boring? What if the motivations of the gods remain forever inexplicable? What if good and evil aren't so simple? What if it's all a huge act?

Now you've got Heroine of the World. The title is a slight misdirect: it refers to a card of divination in this world, seemingly analogous to the Empress card in our Tarot. There are three goddess cards that are mentioned throughout, representing the Maiden/Mother/Crone triad - more than just a recurring motif, this archetype forms the structure of the story, as our heroine passes through each stage in turn.

Though many readers are frustrated by her occasional passivity, I felt that it was a very realistic portrayal of someone shell-shocked by war and loss, caught up by the wheels of fate. It's a bold choice to make your heroine rather unheroic, but it's not the only one Lee makes: all her characters, good and bad, are disturbingly complex.

There's a lot to dig out and mull over in this book, and I feel like I haven't reached the bottom yet. I look forward to many re-reads.

( )

This book is marketed as a fantasy but it doesn't strike me as particularly fantastical. While I don't recognize any of the names of countries or towns, it could just as easily have been set in the Balkans, with action taking place from Russia down to Greece. The religions don't match what there would have been in that historical period. There's no Christianity at all. There are goddesses and animal totems. It opens with the protagonist, the heroine, as a 13-year-old girl being deposited with her aunt, while her mother leaves to be with her soldier father who is near the front lines of the war. She ends up having many adventures and not in a good way, which is realistic, through war, siege, and retreat. Overall, she's a very traditionally feminine character, passive at first getting somewhat more assertive over time, but generally achieving what she does by being very pretty, and being taken under the wing of various adults. She does eventually become more independent. Her passivity at the beginning was frustrating, but not unexpected in a sheltered 13-year-old. Towards the end she becomes pretty tough, though the center of her life is pursuing her Mr. Right. She has picked a very challenging Mr. Right. I enjoyed it a lot. Looking at the reviews on Amazon, I see that people seem to love or hate this book, with more liking it.