NOW I’M GETTING INVESTED.

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I find it rare to come across a short fantasy book (less than 300 pages). I’m loving that this are this short because it’s a good break from big daunting fantasy books.

Alanna is someone I think we can all cheer for. I love continuing to watch her grow and become a powerful woman in her own right. She makes her own decisions and has her own convictions about how she wants her life to go and I applaud her for trying to attain those goals.

Yes, things could be overall fleshed out more. That’s the downfall to shorter reads. This has a lot of focus on just Alanna. A lot of information is thrown into casual conversation without any backstory. I occasionally was confused as to why things happened but, I like focusing on Alanna and what she’s going through rather than what everyone else is doing. This is a rare case of me being able to overlook these matters.

Her kinda sort-of-ish love connection is intriguing. I like that Alanna is choosing who she wants to be with on her own volition (but also you said you didn’t want to be with anyone…so….?). It’s good and fine and all, but I’m not sure they’re endgame. I think it would be interesting if she actually ended up with no one and she originally intended. WE’LL SEE.

The villain still makes me laugh. He’s not evil enough for me and since Alanna keeps besting him, there’s not a push and pull of issues between them.

Overall audience notes:
- Young adult fantasy
- Language: none
- Romance: some kisses, mentions of spending the night with each other, but no actual depictions of those nights
- Violence: swords, poison, magic, kidnapping, murder, battle skirmishes