2/5 Stars
The Girl Of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
Publisher: Greenwillow
Publication: September 20, 2011
Review:
This book was not what I was expecting. I was really in the
mood for a high fantasy and I’d heard tons of people compare this book to
Graceling by Kristin Carshore. In my opinion the two were not similar at all. I
think my biggest sticking point in this book wasn’t the setting, or the plot
but the characters themselves. I just didn’t care about Elisa and not caring
about a main character is the kiss of death for a book.
Elisa is a princess and the book begins at her wedding to a
distant King whose country is on the brink of war. Elisa describes herself as
fat, and throughout the book I think we are meant to believe this is a
character flaw. She is not confident in herself, and despite being the bearer
of the Godstone a gift that comes about only once every four generations she
does not see herself as being worthy or able to do anything. I do not like self
deprecating heroines and for the first half of the book Elisa did not take
control of her life or strive to be anything but the “fat princess”. It wasn’t until
she was force marched across the desert and began losing weight that she
thought herself worthy and began to do something with her life. This
disappointed me. I wanted Elisa to be confident in herself regardless of her
size, the fact that she couldn’t be secure in herself left a bad taste in my
mouth the rest of the novel.
I also had a hard time relating to the other characters in
the novel. Elisa is so quick to accept her captivity and those that are
responsible for it. I thought this was incredibly unrealistic, eor she had the
quickest form of Stockholm syndrome ever recorded? Either way she was quick to
forgive these characters but I wasn’t. I wanted her to grow a backbone, learn
to say no, and fight for her own path.
I also wish someone would have warned me about all the
religious undertones and themes in this book. I am not a very religious person
and so the inclusion of religion needs to be tastefully done for me to
appreciate it in the story. Glamorous Illusion by Lisa T. Bergren was an example
of a novel with religious themes that was very well done and I enjoyed. In The
Girl of Fire and Thorns there was just too much religion not enough plot. I
felt that everything mystical was explained by praying even the Godstone was activated
by praying really *extra* hard.
Overall, this just wasn’t the book for me. I wanted so much
to enjoy it but there were just too many little things that bothered me for me
to really love this novel and I have no plans to pick up the sequel.
Oh no. o_O I've just today read two contrasting reviews for this book-- one person said that it was fantastic, and you said that it sucks.
ReplyDeleteOn one hand, I HATE READING SELF-DEPRECATING characters too. I hate it, because honestly, I'm not like that, so I can't identify with them at all. But on another hand, I don't care one way or another about religious undertones.
Who knows, maybe I'll love this book-- or maybe I'll hate it like you. Crazy how so many opinions differ so much, isn't it? LOL. Terrific review, Emily! (:
Loves,
Megan@The Book Babe
Wow. I'm so shocked by your rating and review. Honestly I think this is the first negative review I've seen for this book. I still have a copy of this one to read but I hope I enjoy it more than you did. Thanks for the honest review!
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