atmreads 's review for:

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

4.0

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GST was part of my 12 books in 2022 challenge and I’m happy to say I enjoyed it!

Let’s start with what I liked. The world building was really good in my opinion. It wasn’t the most in depth, but the bit of it we did get was done very well and it made me want to learn more about this world and the people and creatures within it. I also really loved the characters. They were so interesting and I genuinely cared about them and what would happen to them. The author did an amazing job of investing you in them and their (sometimes questionable) motives. I was really rooting for them. I also LOVED the audiobook. The narrator was phenomenal and did a great job of giving each character distinct voices that truly felt accurate to how they were described and characterized.

That being said, I do have a few complaints. Mostly the promos of queerness that didn’t come through till very late in the book. This book is tagged as LGBTQ+, it’s recommended as queer and while the queerness featured in the end of the story was great and I loved it, I spent the majority of the novel waiting for it. I think part of that is my expectations going in, I was expecting all the gay stuff and then the first romantic subplot was straight. I think had I gone in with different expectations or had known that the sapphic element wasn’t until later in the story, I wouldn’t have had such an issue with that aspect of the story.

Overall, I highly enjoyed this book and definitely recommend it!