~Summary~
Alyrra feels trapped. Her family is cruel and it seems her only option for escape is through an arranged marriage to a prince from a neighboring kingdom. However, on the way to her new life, she is robbed of her identity and forced to become a lowly goose girl. Instead of letting this get her down, Alyrra embraces her new life. But the more she gets to know the people around her, the harder it is for her to ignore her duty. Will she be content staying in the shadows or is it time for her to rise up?
~My Thoughts~
Sorry the last part of the synopsis is so cringe 😂 I kept having second thoughts about it but decided to leave it in there haha! But now onto the book:
Going into this book I had only ever read one other retelling of the goose girl which was, The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. It is one of my favorite books of all time so I had been putting off reading this one for quite awhile now in fear that it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. When I first starting reading this one, without meaning to I had begun to play a sort of comparison game between the two. After I realized this though I could consciously separate them and ended up really enjoying the story that Thorn had to offer!
I think my favorite thing about this book was how it featured strong women who weren’t pushing a feminist agenda. For example, Alyrra didn’t think of herself as weak but she wasn’t too proud to accept help from men and I think that’s something we’ve definitely lost in literature today. I also liked how, in the end, not all of our questions surrounding the world itself were answered because now I’m intrigued as to the companion novels! Overall, I definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading more from this author in the future!
The Art of Reading 