Maaza Mengiste

The description says it is casing light on the women soldiers. It is a bit of a stretch to say this focuses on the women soldiers.
The two main characters are women. But very little time is spent on them being soldiers.
We have a young woman forced into an arranged marriage. She grows up to be a bitter unhappy woman. She is cruel to the young orphan brought into the home. The girl is forced to use her right hand because the left is "evil".
There is a female spy whose story we learn. But almost as much time is spent with the male characters.
I didn't know much about Mussolini and Ethiopia, so it was a lot of new information to me.… (more)

Although 'The Shadow King' centres upon the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, it is thematically similar to [b:Half of a Yellow Sun|18749|Half of a Yellow Sun|Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327934717l/18749._SX50_.jpg|1651408]. The point of view is split amongst five or so characters, with the narrative centring upon Hirut, a servant who becomes a warrior. The prologue positions the majority of the book as flashback, yet it is told in the present tense. I must admit, I expected to find it more involving than I in fact did. The characters and events are undoubtedly interesting and I was invested in their fates. However I found the writing style quite challenging, in a way that's difficult to explain. Mengiste uses no speech marks and a lot of abstract imagery, with elements that recall Greek tragedy such as chapters narrated by a Chorus. While these features are nothing I haven't come across before, together they created a disorientating, even delirious, effect. This seemed to conceal or muddle the characters' actions and relationships, rather than elucidating them. The pace of events also seemed weighted down by explicit declarations of importance. The chapters from Haile Selassie's perspective were frustratingly opaque, depicting the man's actions without accompanying insight into why he made these choices.

I should emphasise that this reflects my own preferences, as the writing is very skilful. Perhaps I was more critical as a consequence of making comparisons with the absolute brilliance of [b:Half of a Yellow Sun|18749|Half of a Yellow Sun|Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327934717l/18749._SX50_.jpg|1651408]? Or, maybe, when it comes to historical novels I prefer greater clarity. Indeed, I'd now like to read a non-fiction book about this particular invasion, which I'd only come across before in history A-level as an example of the League of Nations' failures. For me, the strongest parts of 'The Shadow King' portrayed the wider context of the war and its impact on the Ethiopian population. The depiction of an Italian prison camp that murdered prisoners by throwing them off a cliff was the most shocking and powerful element in the book. The voices and names of those killed in this way cut through the rather clouded narrative, conveying the brutality of the Italian invasion. While these background characters appeared as vivid snapshots, somehow the main characters remained more akin to mysterious symbols. Finally, there was a depressing amount of rape at various points. Historically accurate as this may well have been, it's dispiriting to find rape central to the motivations of multiple female characters.… (more)