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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism
Moderate: Child death, Rape, Sexual assault
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I really loved this! It's half wacky picaresque, half grounded coming of age story for a Complicated Woman. Tess isn't the kind of heroine you usually get, or maybe I should say that she's a standard heroine type taken to the logical conclusion instead of having her edges sanded off for the sake of likability.
Tess's rebelliousness isn't just an empty "spirited" veneer, it's clear that she's legitimately messed up/uncertain/self-destructive in many ways but mostly because she's in a society that she just isn't suited for. She's resourceful, funny and very good at shenanigans, and much of the book is her very slowly learning that those skills actually, in fact, do have value.
Also very much liked Pathka/the quigtul plotline. They were very interesting in Seraphina and it was great to see that worldbuilding explored more here. Seraphina herself is a great inclusion, too. I love when authors bring previous protagonists in but treat them like regular supporting characters. We don't really get a glimpse of Seraphina's interiority aside from what we know from her trilogy, and that gives us a fascinating outsider perspective of who Seraphina is to her family.
Tess's rebelliousness isn't just an empty "spirited" veneer, it's clear that she's legitimately messed up/uncertain/self-destructive in many ways but mostly because she's in a society that she just isn't suited for. She's resourceful, funny and very good at shenanigans, and much of the book is her very slowly learning that those skills actually, in fact, do have value.
Also very much liked Pathka/the quigtul plotline. They were very interesting in Seraphina and it was great to see that worldbuilding explored more here. Seraphina herself is a great inclusion, too. I love when authors bring previous protagonists in but treat them like regular supporting characters. We don't really get a glimpse of Seraphina's interiority aside from what we know from her trilogy, and that gives us a fascinating outsider perspective of who Seraphina is to her family.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3,5/5
Tess del camino es un libro de fantasía escrito por la autora Rachel Harman, en el que nos narra la historia de Tess una joven que no se adapta a las formas y estándares de la sociedad a la que pertenecer. Cansada y asustada del destino que le espera tras manchar la reputación de su familia, huye y emprende un largo viaje por las tierras del sur, dónde descubre que huir es imposible sin avanzar.
Está escrito en tercera persona, desde el punto de vista de Tess. Esto hace que sigamos en todo momento los pasos de la protagonista y veamos como se siente en cada momento.
La trama me ha parecido una maravilla, original y sencilla, pero llena de acción y momentos en los que no me esperaba que dieran ese giro hacia otra dirección.
Reseña completa en: https://sheilagfrutos.es/tess-del-camino-de-rachel-hartman-resena/
Tess del camino es un libro de fantasía escrito por la autora Rachel Harman, en el que nos narra la historia de Tess una joven que no se adapta a las formas y estándares de la sociedad a la que pertenecer. Cansada y asustada del destino que le espera tras manchar la reputación de su familia, huye y emprende un largo viaje por las tierras del sur, dónde descubre que huir es imposible sin avanzar.
Está escrito en tercera persona, desde el punto de vista de Tess. Esto hace que sigamos en todo momento los pasos de la protagonista y veamos como se siente en cada momento.
La trama me ha parecido una maravilla, original y sencilla, pero llena de acción y momentos en los que no me esperaba que dieran ese giro hacia otra dirección.
Reseña completa en: https://sheilagfrutos.es/tess-del-camino-de-rachel-hartman-resena/
I found this book wildly overdone and not very interesting. It seems to be an attempt by the author to provide young people with a character with whom they can identify and she touches on every hot-button social issue: transgender identity, incest, violent rape, polyamory, teenage pregnancy, date rape, statutory rape, alcoholism, suicidal thoughts, prostitution, masturbation, medical rupture of a hymen, blind adherence to religion, mother-daughter tension, misunderstood teen, runaways, etc. Handling any one of these issues would have been more than enough for a single book but cramming them all into a single never-ending, not-very-interesting story just ruined the possibilities for the plot. I really enjoyed Seraphina, thought Shadowscale was slow, tedious and boring, and found this book excruciating.
I also found the Seraphina/Anne-Marie dynamic really frustrating in this book. In “Seraphina,” it’s clear that the relationship between them is strained but the character guide at the end actually labels Anne-Marie as the “not-so-wicked stepmother” and in the breakfast-after-the-wedding scene, Tess herself says that Anne-Marie was hurt because Seraphina called her stepmother by her name. So, which is it? Is the relationship strained but civil or does Anne-Marie view her stepdaughter as spawn of the devil and loathe the very sight of her?
I also found the Seraphina/Anne-Marie dynamic really frustrating in this book. In “Seraphina,” it’s clear that the relationship between them is strained but the character guide at the end actually labels Anne-Marie as the “not-so-wicked stepmother” and in the breakfast-after-the-wedding scene, Tess herself says that Anne-Marie was hurt because Seraphina called her stepmother by her name. So, which is it? Is the relationship strained but civil or does Anne-Marie view her stepdaughter as spawn of the devil and loathe the very sight of her?
I enjoyed pieces of this book much more than the book as a whole. The characters have interesting, sometimes profound, things to say, but the pacing leaves the story feeling more scattered than I like. 3.5 stars rounded up because I like the ending.
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Of all the novels in the luscious, resplendent world Hartman created, Tess of the Road is my favourite that I've read so far.
Explaining why I love it so much will be like carrying a river in a teacup, but I'll try.
Take all of the stuff that has been so extremely competently executed: absolutely top notch worldbuilding, consistent and coherent linguistic development (parallelling European languages but hey whatever), empathetic and compelling as heck characters, and then you have the quigutl and Tess.
The absolute audacity and charm to write a character so flawed and self-involved and tender. To have that character interact with other characters who have such clear but complex motivations, who also change (sometimes), who behave in unexpected but reasonable, and unexpected and unreasonable ways.
The nerve to have the joke about the -utl suffix, implying that everything in Qootla with that suffix is both itself and not itself, like some fantasy Hegelian dialectic; and then never mentioning that quig-utl themselves are the Hegelian ideals, containing within themselves masculine and feminine, the mortal and the divine; it's cheeky!
AND THEN, ALSO, exploring the concept of collective consciousness and the world serpent and Jungian psychology in a way that didn't make me want to immediately puke is incredible.
This book, this series, is so nerdy. But if you're just here for a swashbuckling good time with some heartwarming moments, it's also definitely that too.
Explaining why I love it so much will be like carrying a river in a teacup, but I'll try.
Take all of the stuff that has been so extremely competently executed: absolutely top notch worldbuilding, consistent and coherent linguistic development (parallelling European languages but hey whatever), empathetic and compelling as heck characters, and then you have the quigutl and Tess.
The absolute audacity and charm to write a character so flawed and self-involved and tender. To have that character interact with other characters who have such clear but complex motivations, who also change (sometimes), who behave in unexpected but reasonable, and unexpected and unreasonable ways.
The nerve to have the joke about the -utl suffix, implying that everything in Qootla with that suffix is both itself and not itself, like some fantasy Hegelian dialectic; and then never mentioning that quig-utl themselves are the Hegelian ideals, containing within themselves masculine and feminine, the mortal and the divine; it's cheeky!
AND THEN, ALSO, exploring the concept of collective consciousness and the world serpent and Jungian psychology in a way that didn't make me want to immediately puke is incredible.
This book, this series, is so nerdy. But if you're just here for a swashbuckling good time with some heartwarming moments, it's also definitely that too.