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Michelle F's Reviews > Girl, Serpent, Thorn
Girl, Serpent, Thorn
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Michelle F's review
bookshelves: a-little-meh, fantasy, fairytale, reimagining, in-da-club, location-literature, representaion, reviewed
Mar 26, 2022
bookshelves: a-little-meh, fantasy, fairytale, reimagining, in-da-club, location-literature, representaion, reviewed
“Soraya lived in the shadows of Golvahar so that her family would not live in hers.”
While I do have positive things to say about this 'girl in the tower' fairy-tale remix, my own experience with Girl, Serpent, Thorn wasn't favourable.
There is a neat fusion of folklore influence in the story, and I particularly loved the Persian atmosphere and Iranian culture that contributed. I found myself wishing that we could spend more time with the setting and less time with the characters.
I myself couldn't really get behind everything required to set up Soraya's situation. She's been cursed from babyhood to be poisonous to the touch. And man, that sure sucks. Absolutely...but, she is also kept a secret and locked away for reasons which – the lovely melancholy of my featured quote up top aside – I could easily pick apart. At about the halfway point of the story we learn a truth that ultimately becomes Soraya's base of emotional crisis and conflict, and it felt so contrived that it actually made me angry. Unfortunately, this cast a shadow over everything else in the book for me.
I did like that the story tried to confound expectation. The foreshadowing and tension was pretty solid, so I could always tell when something was setting up to happen. I could even tell that it was going to twist away from easy predictions, but I was almost always surprised by how it did so. That's appreciable.
I guess overall there was just too much angst for reasons I couldn't buy into, so this wasn't awesome for me. My notes say that the rest of my book club liked it better than I did, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
While I do have positive things to say about this 'girl in the tower' fairy-tale remix, my own experience with Girl, Serpent, Thorn wasn't favourable.
There is a neat fusion of folklore influence in the story, and I particularly loved the Persian atmosphere and Iranian culture that contributed. I found myself wishing that we could spend more time with the setting and less time with the characters.
I myself couldn't really get behind everything required to set up Soraya's situation. She's been cursed from babyhood to be poisonous to the touch. And man, that sure sucks. Absolutely...but, she is also kept a secret and locked away for reasons which – the lovely melancholy of my featured quote up top aside – I could easily pick apart. At about the halfway point of the story we learn a truth that ultimately becomes Soraya's base of emotional crisis and conflict, and it felt so contrived that it actually made me angry. Unfortunately, this cast a shadow over everything else in the book for me.
I did like that the story tried to confound expectation. The foreshadowing and tension was pretty solid, so I could always tell when something was setting up to happen. I could even tell that it was going to twist away from easy predictions, but I was almost always surprised by how it did so. That's appreciable.
I guess overall there was just too much angst for reasons I couldn't buy into, so this wasn't awesome for me. My notes say that the rest of my book club liked it better than I did, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
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Reading Progress
November, 2020
–
Started Reading
November, 2020
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Finished Reading
March 26, 2022
– Shelved
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Serge
(new)
Apr 02, 2022 04:46AM
Great review Michelle! The fact that you wished you could spend more time with the setting than the characters is telling, this book seemed to have potential that was squandered for you. I'm glad it still managed to surprise you with some of its twists and turns though!
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Serge wrote: "Great review Michelle! The fact that you wished you could spend more time with the setting than the characters is telling, this book seemed to have potential that was squandered for you. I'm glad i..."Thanks Serge! I think a lot of readers appreciated this more than I did, and I would probably try the author again. I felt like the positives of her writing got a bit lost in the melodrama of a Young/New adult genre, and I can be impatient with that sometimes.
Michelle F wrote: "Serge wrote: "Great review Michelle! The fact that you wished you could spend more time with the setting than the characters is telling, this book seemed to have potential that was squandered for y..."Oh yes that's understandable! I can definitely see how the melodrama would reduce the quality, and it would make a sharp contrast with the beautifully built setting, so the disappointment might hit harder.
