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A review by amiascah
Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust
adventurous
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This was such a captivating story. This was both a fairy tale esque story and a breath of fresh air. Girl, Serpent, Thorn is the telling of Soraya, the twin sister of the Shah and a girl cursed to be deathly poisonous to everything she touches. Cursed by a div as an infant Soraya has learned to live life quietly, alone on the fringes of her brother's life. Until one day everything changes, her sole childhood friend who came less and less to her until one day she just stopped is now engaged to her brother. Her brother is attacked by a div and is luckily rescued by a commoner. When the commoner, Azad is brought back to the Shah's and Soraya's home along with the captured div he meets Soraya and isn't afraid. He gives her courage to seek out the div and find a cure for her curse.
This book is full of one of my favourite things, small little cultural tales, myths, parables, whatever you want to name them. I find them my kryptonite in books, it develops the world building just one wonderful step further, it gives it a history and texture and makes the whole story come more alive. Unfortunately a lot of books that include little tales have similarities and down right the same stories, fortunately I'm not familiar with a lot of Persian tales and there doesn't seem to be too many books that I've read so far that use them also so it was a breath of fresh air in that it flowed like a beautiful fairy tale that I hadn't already heard a version of. I know its been said to be similar to Sleeping Beauty or at least draws from it but other than saying that Soraya wakes up from her just existing day by day then I guess but otherwise I don't really see it. Sleeping Beauty is a passive princess to me, things happen to her and other people do things, Soraya is anything but that.
Spoilers to probably follow
Soraya does live the first chunk of her life living passively, I think mainly because she has zero hope, she's been brought up that this is just her life. Suddenly theres a live div captured, which I don't think ever has happened that she knows of and now theres possibilities, options, hope. I would liken her more to Mulan. Dutiful daughter that one day takes matters into her own hands, yes Soraya is doing things for her self where Mulan was defending her family and her people but Mulan is the closest I think to her. Soraya, makes some really hard choices and yeah she makes mistakes, which makes her all the more human and makes her easy to connect with. I can connect and understand after living in the shadows, being told that you are stuck apart from everyone and everything from no fault of your own, you'd be a little selfish thinking just maybe theres a chance to be like everyone else, to fit in. Maybe she's more of an Ariel recklessly diving head first into not well thought out choices in order to be part of the world she craves to belong to.
This book is full of one of my favourite things, small little cultural tales, myths, parables, whatever you want to name them. I find them my kryptonite in books, it develops the world building just one wonderful step further, it gives it a history and texture and makes the whole story come more alive. Unfortunately a lot of books that include little tales have similarities and down right the same stories, fortunately I'm not familiar with a lot of Persian tales and there doesn't seem to be too many books that I've read so far that use them also so it was a breath of fresh air in that it flowed like a beautiful fairy tale that I hadn't already heard a version of. I know its been said to be similar to Sleeping Beauty or at least draws from it but other than saying that Soraya wakes up from her just existing day by day then I guess but otherwise I don't really see it. Sleeping Beauty is a passive princess to me, things happen to her and other people do things, Soraya is anything but that.
Spoilers to probably follow
Soraya does live the first chunk of her life living passively, I think mainly because she has zero hope, she's been brought up that this is just her life. Suddenly theres a live div captured, which I don't think ever has happened that she knows of and now theres possibilities, options, hope. I would liken her more to Mulan. Dutiful daughter that one day takes matters into her own hands, yes Soraya is doing things for her self where Mulan was defending her family and her people but Mulan is the closest I think to her. Soraya, makes some really hard choices and yeah she makes mistakes, which makes her all the more human and makes her easy to connect with. I can connect and understand after living in the shadows, being told that you are stuck apart from everyone and everything from no fault of your own, you'd be a little selfish thinking just maybe theres a chance to be like everyone else, to fit in. Maybe she's more of an Ariel recklessly diving head first into not well thought out choices in order to be part of the world she craves to belong to.