Monday, April 8, 2013

Book Review: Thorn, by Intisar Khanani @IntisarKhanani

I thoroughly enjoyed Thorn. I usually go into a book fairly blind, and since I received Thorn so long ago, I didn't remember it was a fairy tale retelling of The Goose Girl.

I became attached to Princess Alyrra very quickly -- within the first pages -- and that's why I enjoyed the story so much.  She gets betrothed to a prince from a far away land, and on the way there, her nasty companion uses magic to change places with her!

I think the twist is that Alyrra doesn't mind becoming a common, relatively poor, hard-working girl. She tends the geese with a quiet and somewhat scary man. She works hard and makes friends with several people who tend the horses. She's a wonderful, strong character who always wants to do the right thing for everyone. She's caring and eventually realizes that the best way she can make a difference, is to reach her true destiny and become princess. This takes her a long time.

Meanwhile, the prince knows something is up. He keeps making contact with Alyrra (who is now known as Thorn) because he doesn't entirely believe her story. Thorn can't tell him what happened to her because of the curse, but she doesn't really want to because she's happy where she is.

I'm not a big fan of magic, but this is a fairy tale, and I'm pretty good at just going with the flow. So, there's a talking horse, and the wind speaks to Thorn, and a mean witch has cast the spell to change Alyrra's life because she wants to kill the prince. The talking horse is a bit over the top, but he's part of the original tale, so I'm OK with that. And, he's a great character, even if he is a horse. Very wise.

It's just all great fun, and I even choked up during a few parts. The writing is excellent. The only problem I had was during a few of the magical moments -- I didn't think things were explained very well. I had to read several passages a few times, and still, I thought some "leaps" were necessary, and I wasn't very good at taking those leaps.

Fans of The Goose Girl should definitely find this book. Thorn stays pretty true to the original story but is colorful and embellished nicely. Fans of any retellings will not be disappointed.

Published by CreateSpace, May 15, 2012
eBook obtained from the author for review
246 pages

Rating: 4/5





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2 comments:

  1. Hi Annette - Thanks so much for your review of Thorn! I'm glad you enjoyed it. And that's good to know about my writing during the magical moments. This was my debut novel, so I'm definitely still learning my craft (it never ends, I suppose, but I'm just at the beginning of my learning curve). :) Have a wonderful week!

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  2. Glad you enjoyed it, I did too though I was probably a tad nit picky in my review :)
    Katja

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