captainflint 's review for:

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

2.0

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10/20. The best part of this book was definitely the worldbuilding. The Spanish-inspired fantasy world felt different and unique, and it didn't feel like a carbon copy of every other fantasy world I've read. I also enjoyed the discussion of religion and faith. You almost never see religious protagonists in fantasy stories, and I found that enhanced the story and set it apart. Sadly, everything seemed to come far too easily to the protagonist-- a lot of the major plot points in the story hinged on her thinking of ideas that frankly, someone should have thought of before. She didn't actually seem all that capable. I also felt that the romance was underdeveloped and unnecessary. All three of the important men in the book were set up as love interests for Elisa at some point. (Technically two in this book, but I could tell that the third was being set up to be a future love interest, and I checked the goodreads summary and I was right). The book also had an incredible amount of fat-shaming. I was initially happy to see a protagonist with a different body type, but she only realizes her self worth and grows into her destiny after losing a bunch of weight in a trek through the desert. No thanks.