The Girl of Fire and Thorns (Fire and Thorns #1), by Rae Carson

Publication: September 20, 2011, by Greenwillow Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy

Pages: 423

Format: Hardcover

Source: Borrowed

Rating:

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness. Elisa is the chosen one.
But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can't see how she ever will. Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess. And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake. Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young. Most of the chosen do.

My Thoughts:

I was sure that this would somewhat be like Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass. And because I'm the biggest fan of fantasy, I had high hopes that it would turn out to be similar to a brilliant concept that I first read about two years ago. But, no. The Girl of Fire and Thorns was unique and interesting, yes, but it just didn't have that spark that I would have preferred to devour and fall in love with. If you enjoy kick-ass female heroines who are just battling everything on their own with no romance or action whatsoever, then I do seriously recommend borrowing/purchasing this novel and fall in love with it.

TGOFAT wasn't my cup of tea. To me, it was completely boring, unentertaining and more trying-to-be-based-on-plot than anything else. It was just so weak compared to anything else I've dealt with for a long time. Rae Carson is a good writer, and I still do have high hopes for Walk on Earth a Stranger, but not as high as I would have enjoyed if I read this and adored it.

It has been a few weeks after I finished reading this and I must say that I barely remember what this book was even about. The main character, Elisa, is struggling with her identity as she is being forced to marry a King she barely knows and is a piece of royalty herself, alongside her sisters. Everything that her modern life is consisted of is a lie and she just wants to find a way and path to relax. Of course, this involves fighting, minor action and boring stuff that reminds me of why I didn't enjoy reading fantasy back then.

I couldn't even find any quotes that really made me whirl and cry out of pleasure. I saw an equal amount of negativity and positivity here, though. So let's just state the good things, because you know that everything else would be negative anyways.

What I Enjoyed About TGOFAT:

1. The Side Characters: Elisa's sisters, Alejandro, Humberto, I loved them all. If it weren't for them, my hate for Elisa would've been much stronger. Is this a weird situation because I hated Elisa while others adored her?

2. The Pacing: It was boring, yes, but the story moved on swiftly and before we knew it, we were in another descriptive scene. I adored Carson's descriptive writing, too. There were good things, okay?

3. How It Was One of the First of Its Kind: This is a pretty old high fantasy compared to the others that have been released. By old, I mean that it is old, published in 2011 when there weren't too many fantasies out there. Now, fantasies are like an epidemic in YA but this was new, fresh, and of course, unexperienced in my opinion. I somehow don't get what everyone's going crazy about.

Rae Carson's first novel in this magical series was pretty disturbing in terms of how much I liked it. I wanted better, I wanted more from this whole fiasco that Elisa put herself in, and I wanted an extra dose of romance to spice things up. You know how some authors add in too much to make it extra entertaining? This needed to have an extra pop, and I didn't end up seeing any of that by the end. I'm pretty picky with fantasy, but since this is very popular, I decided to take the risk and go for it. Will you?