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Title: Girl, Serpent, Thorn
Author: Melissa Bashardoust
Sub-genre: Fantasy
Alright. Just want to preface this review by saying, once again, how much I struggled with reading this month. Books that I normally would have loved were just okay for me, so keep that in mind as you read this review.
Soraya is a cursed princess who must stay locked in her tower because she is poisonous–anyone she touches dies almost instantly. For the safety of her twin brother, the king, and her mother, Soraya is mostly a secret. When Soraya is befriended by a guard, she immediately lets him in on her darkest secrets because it has been so long since she had a friend and she is desperate for company. The guard encourages her to find a way to break the curse, even if it means betraying her family. It turns out the guard has ulterior motives, and when Soraya takes his advice instead of a captive div who intrigues Soraya on every level, she is led down a path that will alter the course of her life and her kingdom’s fate.
There were a lot of things I liked about this story. The eventual romance between Soraya and the div, Parvenah, was sweet, and I liked how the two of them came together. There are some great themes in the book in terms of feminism, and the way we treat people. But overall, this one felt kind of lackluster for me. That probably had to do with my struggle with reading, but I also found the book to be pretty predictable. When these “twists” were revealed, I’d already seen them coming. The story itself was really interesting, and the characters were interesting, it was just something about the execution of it that felt a little off for me. I would be willing to read something else by this author, and probably would have enjoyed the experience more if I weren’t in the middle of a total brain break.
Overall Rating: 4 stars