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A review by octavia_cade
Briar's Book by Tamora Pierce
4.0
The last book of a series of four: it's my favourite of the bunch, and by a significant margin. While the four kids who are the protagonists of this series all have admirable skills in their various crafts, I trained as a botanist so naturally Briar, who is essentially being trained as the same, is the one doing the work I am most interested in. A plague has come to the local community - an apt book for our times, to be sure - and the herbalists and plant mages are all working with the various other healers in trying to find a cure for the disease before it kills any more of the local populace.
For all it's hung about with the trappings of magic, this is the most science-focused of the books. Briar, his mentor Rosethorn, and company spend a lot of time taking samples from patients and analysing those samples in what is basically a magical laboratory, trying permutation after permutation of test and potential cure. This is exactly the type of story that is designed to appeal to me, and so it's no surprise really that I liked it the best. For all the magical backdrop to medicine in this world, however, I appreciated that the big magical save done by the kids (there's one in every book, and it's honestly the least interesting thing about them in my opinion) really has nothing to do with the community effort to find a cure. It's just a whole lot of trained and competent people working together, for science!!! Of all the Circle of Magic books, this is the one I'd read again. Really enjoyed it.
For all it's hung about with the trappings of magic, this is the most science-focused of the books. Briar, his mentor Rosethorn, and company spend a lot of time taking samples from patients and analysing those samples in what is basically a magical laboratory, trying permutation after permutation of test and potential cure. This is exactly the type of story that is designed to appeal to me, and so it's no surprise really that I liked it the best. For all the magical backdrop to medicine in this world, however, I appreciated that the big magical save done by the kids (there's one in every book, and it's honestly the least interesting thing about them in my opinion) really has nothing to do with the community effort to find a cure. It's just a whole lot of trained and competent people working together, for science!!! Of all the Circle of Magic books, this is the one I'd read again. Really enjoyed it.