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timeforgsopinion 's review for:
Thorn Season
by Kiera Azar
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
a court of love triangles and dress descriptions
readability: varies
enjoyability: meh
craft: above average
Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Ok, Thorn Season compliment sandwich time. First of all, what a pretty cover! I really appreciate the hustle of doing a foil cover for your ARCs.
Speaking of hustle, billing a book as "the next ACOTAR" is one thing, but billing it as the next ACOTAR while it's got "thorn" in the title and is steeped in rose imagery is uh. Certainly a bold strategy. Remember how one of ACOTAR's main selling points was that it had sex scenes?
In Thorn Season, protagonist Alissa is a noble from one of your standard Fantasy Europe-style kingdoms who must hide her true identity as a magic-user ("Wielder") due to her country's genocidal crackdown on magic users. To do this, she must infiltrate the court and track down a magical MacGuffin while juggling the attentions of three guys: her angsty former childhood best friend who's been forced to turn his back on her and join the Anti-Magic Hunters, the generically hot new ambassador from We're Cool With Magic Land, and the sadistic king who is obsessed with her for... actually he ends up having good reasons for being obsessed with her, kudos for that. Along the way, Alissa must go to many balls wearing many tricked out ballgowns. In other words, we're hitting all the hallmarks of the romantasy genre like we're working from a checklist.
The thing about Thorn Season is that it's an interesting contrast of opposites. The writing is overall fairly deft on a sentence level, with some cool turns of phrase here and there. The characters, on the other hand, are cardboard cutouts that feel like they were written by spinning a wheel of tropes and archetypes. The plot eventually ratchets up to some fascinating twists and turns. The world building, on the other hand, is weak-to-nonexistent, and what little we get is often clumsily deployed via backfilling ("By the way, I'm an expert on identifying jewels. Here's a paragraph telling the audience how I learned that skill. This will never come up again.") Another example: there's a bi/pan supporting character who seems like she'll be important in future books, and I have no idea if her sexuality is considered taboo, avant garde, or totally normal in this society. I'm not saying every YA romantasy needs to be the Silmarillion, but for a book of this length, I expect more than patchily sketched "they like roses and hate magic" -level world building!
Then there's the romance. I'm not really the target audience for this sort of love triangle, so I can't weigh in too much re: the quality or the execution here. All I can say is that a good romance usually starts with good characters, and that part is lacking. I wish they didn't, but the words "painfully generic" come to mind.
The book underwent an abrupt, dramatic change for the better at about the 75% mark—suddenly I was way more engaged, no longer half-heartedly turning pages—and I realized it was in large part because Keil (the hot ambassador)was no longer part of the main plot, and the action was no longer screeching to a halt every few pages to wax poetic about his muscles or dimples or scent or what have you. I personally found Option B, Alissa's childhood ex-friend Garret, much more interesting to read about, but your mileage may vary. Hell, I found the mustache-twirlingly, card-carryingly evil king more interesting to read about!
Now there was a cool dynamic that was handled with sharp intensity. If you make it through the first 75% of the book, you'll be rewarded with a twisty and compelling final act. It's just a bit of a shame that this carefully crafted plot isn't happening to more interesting characters. The author clearly has a lot of skill, and I can see her next books improving upon this one. Here's hoping they devote more page time to characterization and world building.
original impressions:
0%: Ok, I'm going in. My expectations are looooow so if this book can manage to hold my attention without enraging me I will give it a tender kiss on the forehead
100%: Hmmmm. Well. If I hadn't been Between Books I think I would have DNFed this around 25%, but the last 25% picked up and was decently interesting, so. Maybe not a tender kiss on the forehead, but this book gets the perfunctory air kiss on the cheek I might offer to a vaguely remembered great aunt
readability: varies
enjoyability: meh
craft: above average
Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Ok, Thorn Season compliment sandwich time. First of all, what a pretty cover! I really appreciate the hustle of doing a foil cover for your ARCs.
Speaking of hustle, billing a book as "the next ACOTAR" is one thing, but billing it as the next ACOTAR while it's got "thorn" in the title and is steeped in rose imagery is uh. Certainly a bold strategy. Remember how one of ACOTAR's main selling points was that it had sex scenes?
In Thorn Season, protagonist Alissa is a noble from one of your standard Fantasy Europe-style kingdoms who must hide her true identity as a magic-user ("Wielder") due to her country's genocidal crackdown on magic users. To do this, she must infiltrate the court and track down a magical MacGuffin while juggling the attentions of three guys: her angsty former childhood best friend who's been forced to turn his back on her and join the Anti-Magic Hunters, the generically hot new ambassador from We're Cool With Magic Land, and the sadistic king who is obsessed with her for... actually he ends up having good reasons for being obsessed with her, kudos for that. Along the way, Alissa must go to many balls wearing many tricked out ballgowns. In other words, we're hitting all the hallmarks of the romantasy genre like we're working from a checklist.
The thing about Thorn Season is that it's an interesting contrast of opposites. The writing is overall fairly deft on a sentence level, with some cool turns of phrase here and there. The characters, on the other hand, are cardboard cutouts that feel like they were written by spinning a wheel of tropes and archetypes. The plot eventually ratchets up to some fascinating twists and turns. The world building, on the other hand, is weak-to-nonexistent, and what little we get is often clumsily deployed via backfilling ("By the way, I'm an expert on identifying jewels. Here's a paragraph telling the audience how I learned that skill. This will never come up again.") Another example: there's a bi/pan supporting character who seems like she'll be important in future books, and I have no idea if her sexuality is considered taboo, avant garde, or totally normal in this society. I'm not saying every YA romantasy needs to be the Silmarillion, but for a book of this length, I expect more than patchily sketched "they like roses and hate magic" -level world building!
Then there's the romance. I'm not really the target audience for this sort of love triangle, so I can't weigh in too much re: the quality or the execution here. All I can say is that a good romance usually starts with good characters, and that part is lacking. I wish they didn't, but the words "painfully generic" come to mind.
The book underwent an abrupt, dramatic change for the better at about the 75% mark—suddenly I was way more engaged, no longer half-heartedly turning pages—and I realized it was in large part because Keil (the hot ambassador)
Now there was a cool dynamic that was handled with sharp intensity. If you make it through the first 75% of the book, you'll be rewarded with a twisty and compelling final act. It's just a bit of a shame that this carefully crafted plot isn't happening to more interesting characters. The author clearly has a lot of skill, and I can see her next books improving upon this one. Here's hoping they devote more page time to characterization and world building.
original impressions:
0%: Ok, I'm going in. My expectations are looooow so if this book can manage to hold my attention without enraging me I will give it a tender kiss on the forehead
100%: Hmmmm. Well. If I hadn't been Between Books I think I would have DNFed this around 25%, but the last 25% picked up and was decently interesting, so. Maybe not a tender kiss on the forehead, but this book gets the perfunctory air kiss on the cheek I might offer to a vaguely remembered great aunt