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3 stars! This review will contain no spoilers!
Summary:
The Girl of Fire and Thorns is the first book in the Fire and Thorns trilogy by Rae Carson. In this book, Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza, or just Elisa as she prefers, is the chosen God stone bearer of her century. Every four generations God chooses a person to be his champion and complete a special act of service to him. Elisa may be chosen, but she doesn’t feel anything like a champion. She’s the younger of two princesses in the kingdom of Orovalle and now she is about to become the secret wife of the king of Joya d’Arena. This king’s kingdom is on the brink of war and he needs the God stone bearer’s help to save his people. Too bad he’s not the only one who wants her and the God stone she holds in her navel. Elisa needs to find herself and find a way to save the people she loves all without dying as most bearers do.
I gave this book 3 stars. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It was a unique and interesting light fantasy story, but the pacing was pretty slow most of the time. I felt like as a first book, it was a pretty good beginning. This laid down the foundation for the world, the characters, and the magic system. I thought the world building was exquisite! The desert landscape was very easy to picture and the different kingdoms were distinct. The characters are my favorite part of this book! I fell in love with Elisa, Cosme, Humberto (and everyone that’s not Arina). These characters have that spark about them that make you worrying about whether they’re going to be safe, whether they’re going to accomplish their missions. The magic system is still really cloudy at this point, but after what has been revealed you know you want to know more. I think the mystery of how the God stones work was done on purpose to allow for more embellishment in the books to come. I want to say that the 3 star rating is more based on my overall enjoyment reading this book. Because certain plot points took forever to unravel, I felt like I was waiting a long long time for things to happen. Towards the last half, the story started to pick up the pace and I was much more attentive. Here’s something really weird to me though: there was no cliffhanger at the end. I felt like on it’s own, this book could have been a solid stand alone! I have no idea where the book is going to go from here, it’s an open playing field!
Plot:
In this book we are fully in Elisa’s mind and we only get to know as much as she does. It’s been a while since I’ve read a book where we don’t actually get to find out things before the main characters does, but in this book I found myself in the dark a lot. That’s not a bad thing! I liked how I had to work my mind along with Elisa’s to try and learn about the God stones and their powers and definitely her war strategies.
I don’t know if you could tell from my summary, but the writing in this book definitely took inspiration from the Spanish language as all the names and places in this world are very Spanish-like. I believe almost all the characters in this book were of color too. At least the main characters were.
This was also a VERY religious heavy book! The religion in this book wasn't too hard to absorb as it’s pretty close to that of Catholicism (or it is at least in my opinion). The characters deeply deeply believe in their God. One of the priests you meet is actually quite funny because whenever he talks about the king he adds in some extra line like, “King Alejandro, may many sons spring from his loins.” or “His majesty, may minstrels sing epic songs at mention of his glorious name.” Some were quite hilarious.
Another odd thing about this book is that Elisa is not your typical princess female badass. She’s fat, she struggles with anything remotely athletic, she can be a compulsive eater, she’s all around not your usual petite and pretty princess. Her being fat is such a prominent thing, especially in the beginning it’s like the author just didn’t want you to forget. I laughed at how many times it was mentioned just in the first fourth of the book.
Lastly, the romance in this book. WOW. That’s my best way to put it. I had my heart wrenched out twice at least because of the romance this story. It’s no where near the forefront of the book, but plays in nicely on the side. I’m super super excited to see in which direction it’s going to go now after this book.
Characters:
There's a lot of characters in this series and I was one of the people who grew very attached to all the good ones. The cast is really diverse in ways most books aren't and you can easily see that as you read through this book. I wonder if even more characters will join in the sequels! I'd be excited for that.
Elisa, my FAVE, goes through one of the most drastic and well-written character developments I’ve read in a while. I loved how none of the changes in her character happened overnight. She had time to find who she was and what she wanted to be in this world. And I feel like she’s just going to get better in the next books.
Cosme, though she made me so angry in the beginning, is now one of my favorite characters. She’s really complex and even after being with her so much in this book, there’s still a lot I feel like we don’t know about her. If she has a POV of her own, I won’t be mad.
King Alejandro is a weird personality to me. Sometimes I did NOT understand his actions. Actually, it was often that I didn’t understand him. His character to me was the least flushed out, but he still had his part in plot that didn’t require you to know much about him.
Humberto is my little baby. I love him. He’s such a sweet heart and he will always be special in this series to me. Same thing with Lord Hector. Those two boys/men (I don’t remember their ages at this point in time) were my favorite male characters. A close second would be Father Alentin.
Overall:
I would’ve been okay if this book was a standalone, but I’m interested enough to finish the trilogy. Not sure when I'll pick up the rest of the series, but I know I will!
Thanks for reading! :)