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A review by zurpel
First Test by Tamora Pierce
5.0
I just finished another re-listening of First Test and realized once again how much I love Kel's story (I tend to forget this in regular intervals because my very first impression of Kel was that I didn't like her as much as Tamora Pierce's other heroines, probably due to the fact that Kel was so very different from Alanna, the absolute hero of my early youth). I also finally get around to write a review.
In this first part of a quartet (the third series set in Tortall after the books centered around Alanna and Daine) a young girl called Kel decides to become a knight. The rules had been changed years before so that girls now could officially go through training as pages and squires to become knights. However, no girl has chosen to do so so far and Kel is the first. She is disappointed when she learns that she has to pass a year under probation first. Although nearly giving up her plan she stays with her decision all the same and has to prove her worth to the strict and conservative training master. She also has to endure the taunts and verbal as well as physical attacks and tricks from a group of other pages, who don't want a girl among them.
Kel is a very different heroine from Alanna, who had to disguise herself as a boy to become a knight. She also doesn't have magic and doesn't share Alanna's temper. Instead she is determined but usually calm outside, even though a whole storm of feeling may be raging inside of her. She doesn't befriend her fellow pages at once but has to earn their friendship. Kel has a very strong sense of justice and at the age of ten already stands up against bullies. She works hard to be as good if not better as the boys and takes whatever is thrown at her. She is in every aspect a strong character and her fears and "weaknesses" don't really make her weak. She is determined to succeed in spite of her fear of heights, for instance, and gives her best to earn the right to stay after her probation.
In this first part of a quartet (the third series set in Tortall after the books centered around Alanna and Daine) a young girl called Kel decides to become a knight. The rules had been changed years before so that girls now could officially go through training as pages and squires to become knights. However, no girl has chosen to do so so far and Kel is the first. She is disappointed when she learns that she has to pass a year under probation first. Although nearly giving up her plan she stays with her decision all the same and has to prove her worth to the strict and conservative training master. She also has to endure the taunts and verbal as well as physical attacks and tricks from a group of other pages, who don't want a girl among them.
Kel is a very different heroine from Alanna, who had to disguise herself as a boy to become a knight. She also doesn't have magic and doesn't share Alanna's temper. Instead she is determined but usually calm outside, even though a whole storm of feeling may be raging inside of her. She doesn't befriend her fellow pages at once but has to earn their friendship. Kel has a very strong sense of justice and at the age of ten already stands up against bullies. She works hard to be as good if not better as the boys and takes whatever is thrown at her. She is in every aspect a strong character and her fears and "weaknesses" don't really make her weak. She is determined to succeed in spite of her fear of heights, for instance, and gives her best to earn the right to stay after her probation.