Girl, Serpent, Thorn Review

Summary:

Soraya has been locked in her castle for as long as she can remember. She was cursed when she was a babe and has been a shame to her family ever since. When her family comes back to the palace for a royal wedding, they bring with them a handsome soldier who sees Soraya as more than a shame.

My Thoughts:

This was an amazing fairytale I never knew I was missing! I loved all the magic, the folktales, and the characters of this amazing read.

I’m not going to lie, I bought this book purely because of the cover art. This book cover is absolutely stunning and it’s probably one of my favorite covers. However, once I read the synopsis, I was obsessed!!!!

Soraya is a character that I really liked in the end, but I struggled a little bit with her in the beginning. I understood her position and why she acted the way she did, but her childlike innocence and ignorance kind of got on my nerves until like 50 pages in. She is CONSTANTLY questioning herself and it was a little annoying and really sad sometimes.

However, this really grew on me as well because it showed me that she was a flawed and raw character. She was either way too trusting or didn’t trust at all. I think it had to be how much shame and hate she had for herself because of her gift. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to never be able to touch someone or give someone a hug. I loved her because she grew into such a strong character and eventually loved herself for her powers and who she was.

Azad was such an interesting character. The change that overtook his character was truly out of nowhere. His background and storyline was interesting to me and very unique to my fantasy knowledge. I really loved the way that he brought Soraya out of her shell in the beginning and made her look at what she wanted and what she needed out of life. I also thought that he was extremely important to her development and she would not have grown without her.

I loved loved LOVED Parvaneh! She was such a cool character and her and Soraya’s relationship was a very adorable surprise!! I was fascinated by the parirkas and I thought they were very unique characters. I really wish there was some fanart of her because she sounds gorgeous and I am obsessed with her wings. She was also a badass with those wings!

In my opinion, Soraya’s family sucked! Her mother was horrible to her and I was so surprised at Soraya’s forgiveness. The biggest problem in life is lying, why would she lie? It just never works out in the end and obviously in this book it didn’t work either. I also found her brother to be terrible too. They wouldn’t have had any issues if they had treated Soraya as a person and told her the truth. Worst family dynamics ever!

The book world was probably the best part of the entire book and why I’ve given it such a high rating. I was fascinated by EVERYTHING. Soraya’s power and the way she got it, was amazing and extremely unique to me. I’ve read a LOT of fantasy and this book world was a new and refreshing idea and it made me so happy. I was very interested in all the different Divs and wish I could have a book with just their characters. I also loved that the author explained where she got all of her ideas from. That was really cool and very unexpected.

Overall, I really enjoyed this fantasy, but wish there was a sequel!