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A review by mkhare
Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce
2.0
Pierce sure does ask her readers to suspend a LOT of disbelief in this one. The story leaps about wildly, characters drop in and out in the most inelegant of fashions, and I hate how every major thing that occurs in this book is met with little to no reaction from the people it should be concerning the most.
Alanna's relationship with Thom was also quite hard to understand. They hardly ever seemed to interact with each other and Thom obviously did some things that WILDLY went against everyone's best wishes (including Alanna's), but yet Pierce always seemed to be insisting that the twins truly cared for each other when it almost would've made more sense (and perhaps been more interesting) if they didn't. I'll admit that I did start skim-reading a bit towards the end, so perhaps I missed some subtleties?
Overall, it was hard to keep reminding myself that this was Pierce's first book series as it really did become quite a struggle to get through, but it was also good to remind myself of how her writing improved since this series' release. There are always important, thought-provoking ideas/interactions in Pierce's books, so perhaps for those alone would I recommend this series, but in general I would advise starting any new foray into Pierce's writing somewhere else (perhaps with my favourite of Pierce's main characters, Kel). 2.5 stars.
Alanna's relationship with Thom was also quite hard to understand. They hardly ever seemed to interact with each other and Thom obviously did some things that WILDLY went against everyone's best wishes (including Alanna's), but yet Pierce always seemed to be insisting that the twins truly cared for each other when it almost would've made more sense (and perhaps been more interesting) if they didn't. I'll admit that I did start skim-reading a bit towards the end, so perhaps I missed some subtleties?
Overall, it was hard to keep reminding myself that this was Pierce's first book series as it really did become quite a struggle to get through, but it was also good to remind myself of how her writing improved since this series' release. There are always important, thought-provoking ideas/interactions in Pierce's books, so perhaps for those alone would I recommend this series, but in general I would advise starting any new foray into Pierce's writing somewhere else (perhaps with my favourite of Pierce's main characters, Kel). 2.5 stars.