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A review by dylan_tomorrow
Thornfruit by Felicia Davin
5.0
As has happened before, I am at a loss for good words that convey my love for this book well. Yet, considering how criminally under-read it is, I will try nonetheless. I just blind-bough the sequel Nightvine without even reading the sample, so maybe that review will be better written :D.
I love so many elements of this book. The two leads, Ev and Alizhan and the tight friendship they form, plus their unresolved tension. How much I felt for those two and how much it hurt to see them suffer, how much it made me happy to watch them become closer! The fascinating secondary characters who become more important slowly but surely and who I came to love. The "bad guys", most perplexing of them the main antagonist who we get so see from many different perspectives.
At the core of this book is a bond between two girls, Ev and Alizhan on a tidally locked planet where the sun never raises nor sets, instead hangs in different elevations/angles in different places.
Alizhan is an orphan abandoned at birth and taken in by Iriyat, a member of the ruling council. She has magic powers (she can read peoples emotions and thoughts), something quite taboo in the city of Laalvur. In a cruel irony of fate, while she can read minds she cannot decipher facial expressions at all nor recognize faces well. Iriyat uses her as a spy and raises her as best she can.
Ev does not fit in. She is seen as too tall for a woman and people don't understand why she carries a weapon and has short hair. She a child of exiles from a faraway land. Her dad is rumoured to have murdered someone. No matter how often she asks, he never tells her why he was exiled.
From the first time they meet they are intrigued by one another. Ev anchors Alizhan, gives her something to hold onto in the crowds of too many minds that easily overwhelm her. She has a crush on Alizhan, who naturally knows that immediately. Alizhan cannot reciprocate because her touch is so painful people are knocked out by it and she cannot control this involuntary magic.
One day, Alizhan ends up being pursued by guards from two rivalling ruling families, carrying a mysterious book with a secret message. Ev helps her escape and together they stumble upon a conspiracy of powerful people abusing orphans with magical abilities.
The way Alizhan's powers are portrayed is a strength of this book. She knows people better than Ev because she knows their secrets. She is aware of sexual thoughts being an undercurrent in most minds, of wide-spread same-sex attractions, of everyone doing good and bad things, being good and bad. What she gleams from people's minds she uses to play them without them even noticing but also to be kind to them in ways they will never know. In general, I love how magic works here and how the book slowly reveals this as the protagonists learn more about how it works and how to control it.
Alizhan's mind reading is also utilized narratively wonderfully, as when we follow her 3rd person pov we get a kind of semi-omniscient narration of everything she perceives in minds of others. Often I thought a new section was being told from Ev's pov only to find out it had been told from Alizhan's pov all along. I love the fluidity of that!
Another great narrative feat is the third pov this story is told from. It follows a unnamed woman on her voyage on a ship to a guy she is to be married to against her will falling in love with a sailor and the fallout of that. At first, this strand of the story comes totally out of left field and appears disconnected to Ev and Alizhan's tale, but in time the reader figures out more and more who this woman is and why her story is told the way it is. At first this strand bored me, later I cared so much, and at the end it devastated me.
I love so many elements of this book. The two leads, Ev and Alizhan and the tight friendship they form, plus their unresolved tension. How much I felt for those two and how much it hurt to see them suffer, how much it made me happy to watch them become closer! The fascinating secondary characters who become more important slowly but surely and who I came to love. The "bad guys", most perplexing of them the main antagonist who we get so see from many different perspectives.
At the core of this book is a bond between two girls, Ev and Alizhan on a tidally locked planet where the sun never raises nor sets, instead hangs in different elevations/angles in different places.
Alizhan is an orphan abandoned at birth and taken in by Iriyat, a member of the ruling council. She has magic powers (she can read peoples emotions and thoughts), something quite taboo in the city of Laalvur. In a cruel irony of fate, while she can read minds she cannot decipher facial expressions at all nor recognize faces well. Iriyat uses her as a spy and raises her as best she can.
Ev does not fit in. She is seen as too tall for a woman and people don't understand why she carries a weapon and has short hair. She a child of exiles from a faraway land. Her dad is rumoured to have murdered someone. No matter how often she asks, he never tells her why he was exiled.
From the first time they meet they are intrigued by one another. Ev anchors Alizhan, gives her something to hold onto in the crowds of too many minds that easily overwhelm her. She has a crush on Alizhan, who naturally knows that immediately. Alizhan cannot reciprocate because her touch is so painful people are knocked out by it and she cannot control this involuntary magic.
One day, Alizhan ends up being pursued by guards from two rivalling ruling families, carrying a mysterious book with a secret message. Ev helps her escape and together they stumble upon a conspiracy of powerful people abusing orphans with magical abilities.
The way Alizhan's powers are portrayed is a strength of this book. She knows people better than Ev because she knows their secrets. She is aware of sexual thoughts being an undercurrent in most minds, of wide-spread same-sex attractions, of everyone doing good and bad things, being good and bad. What she gleams from people's minds she uses to play them without them even noticing but also to be kind to them in ways they will never know. In general, I love how magic works here and how the book slowly reveals this as the protagonists learn more about how it works and how to control it.
Alizhan's mind reading is also utilized narratively wonderfully, as when we follow her 3rd person pov we get a kind of semi-omniscient narration of everything she perceives in minds of others. Often I thought a new section was being told from Ev's pov only to find out it had been told from Alizhan's pov all along. I love the fluidity of that!
Another great narrative feat is the third pov this story is told from. It follows a unnamed woman on her voyage on a ship to a guy she is to be married to against her will falling in love with a sailor and the fallout of that. At first, this strand of the story comes totally out of left field and appears disconnected to Ev and Alizhan's tale, but in time the reader figures out more and more who this woman is and why her story is told the way it is. At first this strand bored me, later I cared so much, and at the end it devastated me.