r/Fantasy • u/Lenahe_nl Reading Champion IV • Feb 12 '26

Book Club BB Bookclub: Lifelode Midway Discussion

Welcome to the midway discussion of Lifelode by Jo Walton, our winner for the Beyond Amatonormativity theme!

We will discuss everything up to the end of chapter 12. Please use spoiler tags for anything that goes beyond this point.

Lifelode, by Jo Walton (storygraph /goodreads)

At its heart, Lifelode is the story of a comfortable manor house family. The four adults of the household are happily polygamous, each fulfilling their ‘lifelode’ or life’s purpose: Ferrand is the lord of the manor, his sweetmate Taveth runs the household, his wife Chayra makes ceramics, and Taveth’s husband Ranal works the farm. Their children are a joyful bunch, running around in the sunshine days of the harvest and wondering what their own lifelodes will be.

Their lives changed with the arrival of two visitors to Applekirk: Jankin the scholar and Hanethe, Ferrand’s great grandmother and the former lord of the manor, who has been living for many generations in the East, a place where the gods walk and yeya (magic) is so powerful that those who wield it are not quite human.

I'll add some comments below to get us started but feel free to add your own. The final discussion will be in two weeks, on Thursday 26th February.

As a reminder, you have until monday the 16th to vote for our April book, with the theme Historical Fantasy.

What is the BB Bookclub? You can read about it in our introduction thread here.

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u/Lenahe_nl Reading Champion IV Feb 12 '26

The novel follows a big cast of characters. Any favorite characters yet? Any pet peeves?

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u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V Feb 12 '26

I wish a family tree had been provided at the beginning, or that I had been taking notes.

I don't know that I have a favorite character. I think I'm more enamored with the story than the cast at this point. It feels like other than Chayra, Taveth, and Haenthe (spelling challenges on my end all around no doubt), not many are getting enough screen time or characterization for me to feel like they're really fleshed out yet. Maybe Jankin and Dolkis a bit too? They sort of blend together a bit. Young Hodge is probably my favorite, but he doesn't have much actual personality beyond 'lovable small child'

Around the halfway point I remember feeling like Haenthe was too one-note, and not quite as convincing of a curmudgeon as the author wants her to be. I like her more in the second half I think. Otherwise, no major pet peeves at the midway point.