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I was a bit dubious about Intisar Khanani's Thorn at first, mostly due to the Standard YA First Person Present Tense, and also the amount of time it took the book to introduce another prominent female character besides the shy, abused princess heroine who was not Awful.
However, once we got into the meat of the story, I enjoyed it increasingly, and I ended up with a great deal of respect for the book despite the slow start.
Thorn is a retelling of the Goose Girl -- a fairy tale in which the wicked maid swaps places with the virtuous princess while she's on her way to marry a prince that she's never met, until supernatural forces Set Things Right.
The most prominent twist in this version, of course, is that after the swap happens, Princess Alyrra has zero interest in revealing the truth, despite frequent guilt trips from various people including her judgy talking horse, and, eventually, the actual prince. Being a goose girl seems very restful as compared to being a princess! The nice family that works in the stables seem lovely despite the language barrier!
JUDGY TALKING HORSE: Look, your maid is kind of evil and I'm pretty sure this is all part of an evil sorceress' plot to murder your intended bridegroom, don't you feel a little responsible for taking up responsibility to sort this all out?
PRINCESS ALYRRA: Um, I had no choice about this engagement and had literally never met the dude in person before coming here, and therefore feel no responsibility WHATSOEVER.
But of course the rest of the book is about Alyrra growing into herself, and getting to know the country and its issues, and starting to very, very reluctantly feel a sense of responsibility after all.
A few things I very much liked about the book towards the end
- it does the Uprooted thing (though this book actually predates Uprooted!) where the end is about understanding and sympathizing with the villain's tragic backstory, and thus defusing their vengeance!
- Alyrra calling the prince on picking someone who would offer loyalty when given the absolute bare minimum of decent treatment was great, A+. Alyrra consistently refusing to allow the prince to guilt her into feeling like she owes him loyalty and affection was generally pretty great
- and the fact that the end is not necessarily true love, although the possibility is there -- I also appreciated that
...in general I also feel like the book got a lot better once the judgy horse was dead? I'm sorry, Falada, normally I quite like judgy companion animals! But I did not understand his motivations and he was distractingly Narnia in a book that otherwise was very little Narnia.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/433737.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
However, once we got into the meat of the story, I enjoyed it increasingly, and I ended up with a great deal of respect for the book despite the slow start.
Thorn is a retelling of the Goose Girl -- a fairy tale in which the wicked maid swaps places with the virtuous princess while she's on her way to marry a prince that she's never met, until supernatural forces Set Things Right.
The most prominent twist in this version, of course, is that after the swap happens, Princess Alyrra has zero interest in revealing the truth, despite frequent guilt trips from various people including her judgy talking horse, and, eventually, the actual prince. Being a goose girl seems very restful as compared to being a princess! The nice family that works in the stables seem lovely despite the language barrier!
JUDGY TALKING HORSE: Look, your maid is kind of evil and I'm pretty sure this is all part of an evil sorceress' plot to murder your intended bridegroom, don't you feel a little responsible for taking up responsibility to sort this all out?
PRINCESS ALYRRA: Um, I had no choice about this engagement and had literally never met the dude in person before coming here, and therefore feel no responsibility WHATSOEVER.
But of course the rest of the book is about Alyrra growing into herself, and getting to know the country and its issues, and starting to very, very reluctantly feel a sense of responsibility after all.
A few things I very much liked about the book towards the end
- it does the Uprooted thing (though this book actually predates Uprooted!) where the end is about understanding and sympathizing with the villain's tragic backstory, and thus defusing their vengeance!
- Alyrra calling the prince on picking someone who would offer loyalty when given the absolute bare minimum of decent treatment was great, A+. Alyrra consistently refusing to allow the prince to guilt her into feeling like she owes him loyalty and affection was generally pretty great
- and the fact that the end is not necessarily true love, although the possibility is there -- I also appreciated that
...in general I also feel like the book got a lot better once the judgy horse was dead? I'm sorry, Falada, normally I quite like judgy companion animals! But I did not understand his motivations and he was distractingly Narnia in a book that otherwise was very little Narnia.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/433737.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.