A review by matmatmatty
Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce

adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

This was fine as a story. There were a few aspects that I didn't enjoy/appreciate though...

This is the story of Alanna who doesn't want the noble-lady life that’s expected of her. Instead, she swaps places with her brother and takes his place learning to become a knight. The story follows Alanna (or Alan) has she starts her journey to become a knight, while hiding her true identity from those around her.

I enjoyed the care taken into Alanna and her motivations - this idea of showing young girls they can do anything they set their minds to is good and I am always happy to see that in books. The story itself was interesting and took a few turns - I felt that Alanna (especially considering she is a child) is a bit OP at times and it feels like she can do things that adults can't and that did take me out of it. But seeing her work hard to improve in what she was bad at was a good touch.

There were a few things I didn't enjoy though:
  • The worldbuilding - I think this is a really interesting world, but i found it quite difficult at times to understand what was going on. I found the magic system quite confusing tbh.
    There's talk about 'gifts' but no explanation about what they do. I understand that the gifts relate to magic but first we're told that the gods will punish those who don't use their gifts and then we hear of multiple people who don't use their gifts. We meet George and he tells us he has a gift, which is why he knew who they were, but we're also told that having a gift protects others from finding out things with their gifts. It was so confusing and I don't understand why there couldn't have been something explaining this.
  • The pacing - minor point, but it was confusing to see time pass in irregular ways. It was difficult to understand just how much time had passed, because it would feel like it had just been months from the text, but actually it had been years. Specific time markers ('finally winter arrived' or 'It was now Alanna's 13th birthday') were rare and spaced out.
  • The Bazhir.
    I don't think this was intended but I really didn't like how the Bazhir were portrayed. They're clearly Middle Eastern-coded, and the line about how they hide their women/wives. Jesus. The fact that everyone was like 'they're so weird' or 'I just don't like them' - I don't like perpetuating racist stereotypes, especially with no follow-up on that. Like fair enough if Alanna was like 'they're weird' but then learned more about their culture and said 'they're not weird now that i understand them' (obviously not exactly that but that meaning)

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