Sunday, February 16, 2020

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson (audiobook)

genre: young adult fantasy

Orphan Elisabeth was raised among books, but not just any books.  The books that Elisabeth heard whispering from the shelves of one of the Great Libraries are grimoires, magical spell books with minds of their own that Elisabeth has known since she was a girl that she wanted to grow up and protect the kingdom from.  Because the sorcerers that use the grimoires are evil, everyone knows that.  They use demons to work their spellcasting magic and Elisabeth wants nothing to do with it.  One fateful night, however, something at her Great Library goes very wrong and her decision to solve it will lead her to learn more about sorcerers and demons than she couldn't ever imagined.  Suddenly the lines between evil and good aren't as black and white as they seemed.

As a book lover, it's hard to not be drawn to a book that's about BOOKS, right?  And those books (and the libraries that protect the world from them) are an important piece of the mystery that Elisabeth has to unravel.  I like a book with a capable (and tall!) female heroine even if sometimes her naiveté was a little frustrating.  The thing that sometimes bothered me a bit is that in her actions she seems to capable to swordfight, solve problem, etc. but sometimes her inner monologue and dialogue feels much younger that her behavior would suggest.  I just never felt super connected to her as a character because of this, despite enjoying myself as I followed her story.  I like the demon plotline and that part of the world building was interesting - I just didn't totally fall hook, line and sinker for the rest of the world building and sometimes plotholes bogged me down, I just couldn't BELIEVE it all.  Here's what I DID love: the male main character had a very interesting backstory and his dialogue was very witty, I liked him a lot and I appreciated his vaguely fluid sexuality without that being his main characteristic.   The romance was a slow burn that was fulfilling enough and while I think I liked the IDEA of this story better than the execution, it was still entertaining.

3.5 round up to 4

fiction, fiction20, audiobook, audiobook20, strong female characters, fantasy, young adult, magic, demons, books and reading, orphans

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