'Girl of Fire and Thorns' by Rae Carson

Carson, Rae. The Girl of Fire and Thorns. New York, Greenwillow Books, 2011. Print.

Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza, the younger princess of the kingdom of Orovalle, is wed in an arranged
(secret!) marriage to King Alejandro de Vega, of the neighbouring country of Joya d'Arena.  Joya d'Arena is embroiled in a war with another country, Invierene, and their situation is precarious.  Elisa has been marked by God with a blue gemstone (a Godstone) embedded in her navel since birth that signals she is to do somethig special.  No one really knows what.  Yet.  Mostly because people with a Godstone tend to die while in the process of fulfilling their prophecy.  Oh, and they almost always die young.  All this and Elisa is only sixteen years old.

Cover image:
www.harpercollins.com

After Elisa arrives at the palace in Joya d'Arena, she's kidnapped by a group of rebels, and dragged across the desert. Once they arrive at the rebel village, Elisa embraces their cause, and uncovers a treacherous plot against King Alejandro.  Can she save Joya d'Arena and King Alejandro in time?

One of the things I enjoyed the most about The Girl of Fire and Thorns was that Elisa wasn't a typical YA heroine.  She's not considered particularly good-looking, much less beautiful, and she's also quite overweight.  Fat, in Elisa's words.  She uses food as a coping mechanism until she no longer has that option and has to figure out how to deal with any problems that arise using her own wits and intelligence.  Another thing that sets this medieval-themed fantasy novel apart is that the marriage is not something Elisa looks forward to.  She's terrified, the people in Joya d'Arena look at her as an outsider, her husband is not the least bit interested in her, and most people treat her like the child she still is.  Carson presents a rather realistic view of what it must have felt like to end up in a dynastic marriage.

There are lots of Spanish-language influences in the book (Carson was learning Spanish when she started writing the novel), and Elisa's religion doesn't feel as if it only resides in an alien planet.  The familiar feel of the language and religion help ease you into the novel and quickly establishes the setting.  It think it's important to say here that you shouldn't let the heavy presence of the world's religion drive you away from the book.  It's absolutely integral to the plot and Elisa as a character.  Plus, Carson allows the characters to feel doubt and question their religious beliefs and faith. 

The Girl of Fire and Thorns is a great action-packed read with a relateable heroine, who repeatedly falls down, makes mistakes, and picks herself back up (a lot!), because it's the only thing she can do.

The one thing I hated about the book was the cover.  I despised it.  (*gets out soapbox*) Mostly because it insisted on glamorizing Elisa and portraying her as a lithe, conventionally pretty, Caucasian girl, when she is decidedly none of those things in the novel and says so quite often.  It's so glaringly wrong that the YALSA blog "The Hub" mentioned it in a post on the practice of whitewashing book covers (characters who are clearly written as people of color, but depicted as Caucasian on the cover).   Face it.  People judge books by their covers all the time.  I'm guilty of it.  But when we want teens to read for enjoyment and they want to read about people who look like they do, it must be incredibly disheartening to scan the shelves of their local library's teen/YA fiction section and only see covers with the stereotypical pretty white chick, who has hair that belongs in a shampoo commercial. (*puts soapbox away*) 

There are two more books in the series: The Crown of Embers and The Bitter Kingdom.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns was a finalist for a William C. Morris YA Debut award in 2012.

'Carry On' by Rainbow Rowell

Rowell, Rainbow. Carry On: A Novel. New York, St. Martin's Griffin, 2015. Print.

Image from
www.rainbowrowell.com

Simon Snow is your average foster kid in England, shuttled from care home to care home during his summer holidays from Watford School of Magicks.  Did I say average?  Simon's one of the most powerful mages in England.  Or he would be if only he could get his magic under control.  Usually when Simon uses his magic, the spells don't work or they work too well.  He suspects his roommate at Watford, Baz, is a vampire, and Simon and Baz don't get along very well.  Needless to say, Simon's afraid that Baz is going to sink his fangs into his neck while he sleeps.  To add insult to injury, Simon believes his girlfriend, Agatha, has thrown him over for Baz.  His best friend, Penelope, constantly breaks school rules by sneaking into Simon and Baz's room.  On top of all that, there have been attacks by the Insidious Humdrum and strange dead spots have been appearing all over England where magic has just disappeared.

A series of strange events marks the beginning of Simon's final year at Watford, namely the fact that Baz's dead mother, Natasha, appears to Simon and delivers a cryptic message about the circumstances of her death for Simon to give to Baz; and an obviously ill Baz doesn't show up to the school until eight weeks into the term.  Once Baz returns to Watford, he, Simon, and Penelope team up to try and uncover the tangled mystery surrounding Natasha's death, while also trying to figure out how to defeat the Humdrum.

Rowell first introduced us to Simon Snow in her novel Fangirl, where it's a fictional fantasy series that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Harry Potter phenomenon.  Rather than write the book as the fictional author might have, Rowell has basically written a fan-fiction novelization of a fictional fantasy series she created.  Got that?  The Harry Potter influence is so strong in Carry On, that for the first third of the book, it's impossible not to mentally tally all the bits and pieces that are literary cousins to their Harry Potter counterparts.  Once Baz arrives on the scene, though, the story really picks up and races to the frantic and satisfying conclusion.

It's worth mentioning that although Rowell's magical world somewhat resembles that of Harry Potter, it diverges in significant ways.  Rowell's witches and mages live in the world of Normals, use smartphones, and create savvy Google searches.  Spells are common catchphrases or quotes from popular movies or songs, and witches and mages don't always use wands.

I was a little disappointed that Rowell didn't delve as deeply into the emotional lives of Simon or Baz as she did in her award-winning novel, Eleanor & Park.  Still, Simon and Baz's inner monologues probe their emotional attachments to each other and their families and friends.  As in her other novels, characters are allowed to unfold slowly across the pages of the book.  Character development is not rushed or forced, which also helps keep the reader on their toes as the resolution of the book approaches.

Readers of Rowell's other YA novels, Eleanor & Park, and Fangirl will probably love this novel.  So will readers of the Harry Potter series, if they can help themselves from comparing it to Harry Potter.  There's enough mystery to keep mystery fans engaged, too.