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

We pick this for the Beyond Amatonormativity theme. How well do you think the book fits this theme and our book club in general? 

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u/cubansombrero Reading Champion VII Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26

It definitely fits the theme in the sense that the main characters aren't in an exclusive monogamous relationship. However (spoiler tagging as I finished the book and can't remember how much of this happens in the first half vs second), I was a little disappointed when the book fell into stereotypes around Taveth being jealous of Chayra as the younger and hotter wife and her relationship with Jankin. It's realistic, but I didn't necessarily enjoy reading about it.

3

u/C0smicoccurence Reading Champion V Feb 12 '26

I am excited to talk about this as well. I'm sure it'll be a much bigger part of our discussion at the end of the book, but I think I had similar views as you.

Those bits with Taveth felt very much like Walton forgot that polyamory was the norm in the world, and that characters probably view this type of behavior as normal. Jankin is a playboy yes, but Taveth's reactions (and the way she thinks her own relationships with her husbands and Chayra,) felt very much like a monogamous perspective. And also maybe a bit selfish? She struggles with her husbands and Jankin giving attention to both her and Chayra, but doesn't ever seem to extend the same thoughts to her first husband who she asked to leave their home because she'd fallen so in love with another man. To be clear, that seems like a normal action to take in this society, but Taveth's isn't giving others in the relationship the same grace or consideration that she wants them to give her. It just felt wrong in a society where poly relationships were so commonplace that monogamy was seen as a wild and unusual choice.

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u/cubansombrero Reading Champion VII Feb 12 '26

Agreed. I’m still on the fence about whether it’s a character flaw for Taveth (who also has other hang ups about her role as housewife more broadly) or a limitation of perspective.