By Aurora B.
Rae Carson sets her past-day fantasy fiction novel, “The Girl of Fire and Thorns,” throughout of the kingdom of Orovalle and the kingdom of Joya d’Arena. This book is in first person view to elaborate the journey of the character, Elisa and what she is experiencing and what’s happening and how it affects her. The tone of this book is intense and unstable. It’s written to create suspense and anxiety among the reader. This book is about how Princess Elisa, Bearer of the God stone is married off to a king named Alejandro in the kingdom of Joya d’Arena. She is then quickly kidnapped to a struggling village to help them fight against the kingdom’s thriving enemy, the Invierne. She then takes position of the leader of the small army and begins to learn to fight side by side with them. Throughout this time the God stone helps the village with their attempts to weaken the Invierne army and its supplies. Overall the book was adventurous and exciting and was good for visual learners because it was detailed in description and easy to imagine in your head. Though I thought it was cliché, it was a good book overall.
Elisa, being a princess and God stone bearer of Orovalle, was vitally important. She had become a mere princess to a war hero for Orovalle and Joya d’Arena. She is a natural leader and a good thinker when coming to pressure. What makes this character relatable or interesting is that in the midst of all these things happening to her she experiences grief and pain and suffers through it. She has what the people call the God stone which grants her powers and prophecies that she gets directly from God. This makes her vital for Orovalle’s survival and life. She is also interesting because only every hundred years does a God stone appear in a civilization or in the world. Elisa is a wise person because she states in the book, “You must not lose faith, child. No matter what. Do not doubt God or his choosing of you. He knows infinitely more than we can imagine.” Stating that Elisa should keep her head high as they figure out a way to fend off Invierne. This shows she is full of knowledge and has experienced much in her life and knows what to do in that time of doubt. The character Elisa is also a caring person as it is said in the book, “my people are perfectly capable without me but maybe I need them.” Delivering the point that she would help her fellow people and her husband in any situation and that they have become a family even though she had to leave back to the kingdom of Joya d’Arena to help the war cause from there. Though Elisa struggles and grieves Elisa is also empowered by this experience and feels stronger mentally and physically and feels as though she is becoming new.
In this book Elisa learns that life isn’t easy and that it’s up to you to decide your own fate. The big idea is that you shouldn’t underestimate someone. Throughout the book Elisa is brought to tragedy and difficult times. This shapes the character Elisa to the concluding point of the book and how she grew as a person and that you can always improve from your hard times.
Connections this book has with life is that it shows how you can grow to be a better person through experience and through different points in your life. This book has a trilogy with the two more books being,”Crown of Embers,”and,”The Bitter Kingdom”,but there is no movie. Rae Carson has also published the book, “Life a River.” I would recommend this book to teenagers or young adults because of the war and sometimes graphic scene’s. I think both boys and girls can read this and that if they were interested in fantasy and conflict in war, conflict, romance, and magic. I would rate this book 4.5 stars because it seemed a little cliché and easy to follow with the conflict and plot. It was a good book of adventure and courage. This book has unique characters and lots of good drama and morals with growth and tragedy but a great book in the overall.
Tiger Times 