Thorn (Dauntless Path Book 1)

I stumbled upon this book quite randomly and was drawn in because of its lovely cover (am always a sucker for a nice cover) and since I have been watching a few German Brothers Grimm adaptations lately, I was eager to give this reinterpretation a go.Boy was I glad I did. I LOVED every second of it. This is an out-and-out page turner that I could not put down. Thorn is written in first person perspective which is never my favourite tense as it all hinges on how likeable the narrator is. Get an obnoxious or unbalanced narrator and book enjoyment is all over, red rover. Luckily, Alyrra is quite likable despite starting out quite passive and mousey. In her coming of age of sorts, she slowly finds her feet and voice.You definitely don't need to know the story of 'The Goose Girl' before reading this novel as I wasn't familiar with this story at all. Thorn is set in a vaguely middle eastern fantasy world where the magic is very naturalistic and at times understated, but easy to follow. Alyrra, the heroine lives a very lonely life, tormented by her brother and shunned and unloved by her mother. When a king of a much larger kingdom comes proposing marriage to his son Prince Krestin, she has no choice but to accept the forced marriage as a political alliance between the two kingdoms. It is on her way to Menaiya that she is betrayed and is taken hostage by a terrible curse, losing both her body in a switcharoo to her frenemy and companion Valka and the ability to fight for it back. Behind Valka is the infinitely more dangerous 'Lady' who is bent on royal revenge.Alyrra aka Thoreena aka Thorn eventually blooms in Menaiya as a goose girl in the fields, gaining a freedom and friendships she could never have imagined or received as a royal. I loved her cat and mouse battles with Kestrin, who suspects his betrothed is not the gem he believed she was, and that this dirty goose girl is far worth more than the pittance she works for. Theirs is not a straight out bickering romance as it is a journey laced with lies, betrayal and secrets that both repulses and draws them to each other. I love where it takes them, to the deepest, darkest depths of the heart and how they emerge at the end, with their 'kinda happy ending' but not without emotional scars which need time and each other to eventually heal.The characters in the book are memorable, no matter how fleeting or full their role was and felt fleshed out and <i>alive</i>. I was even bawling at one stage. The story, from the 'fish out of water' sub-plot to the magical climax builds gradually and yet feels like break-neck speed. Author Intisar Khanani is simply hugely talented who got the pacing in Thorn damn well near perfect. Not a word is wasted although when I finished the book it felt like the party had finished too quickly and before I was emotionally ready to let go...like a child unwilling to leave the beach when their parents say it's home time. Just one more hour, half hour, ten minutes! There were questions still to be answered, more story left to explore and characters I wanted to know better. You could say that the one flaw in this book is that the explanation and role of magic and magical characters could have been expanded as many things are glanced over or mentioned only in passing. Who is in the Council of Mages for example? Is the punishment really death? What about the meaning behind the cloth Alyrra's mother gave to her? How does 'Wind' work? ...So many more questions. As a young adult novel it would never need to go in depth as Tolkien or Martin but I wanted more detail, more world-building. Maybe the editor was too ruthless, damn you.Honestly from the prior reviews I came into this book with expectations of a good read but how much I was blown away I did not expect at all. I will definitely seek out more of Intisar's books and the companion series to Thorn as well.Rating: 5 thumbs. There is power in fingers!Re-readability: yes!

Thorn is, I think, both a mark of a fantastic mind and an overly complicated plot. The story is threaded with deep, rich themes of trust in relationships, personal and social value, and above all justice. The characters are interesting, the plot is really never predictable in the traditional sense, the decisions and events are well-thought out and crafted. What is more, the nearly unbelievable circumstances of the Princess Alyrra's fall from position and the mystery of her initial connections to the prince of this foreign country are crafted and explained and drawn out in ways that are very believable and in many ways moving. Alyrra's willingness to keep giving chances and do what is right and compassionate and honest in her circumstances, even when she feels tired of it, will resonate well with many people. At the same time, her willingness to accept her circumstances and go with the flow, to not quite run away altogether, but to make the best of what she has--this is also very human and easy to relate to. In this way, the dialog and character building and transition of the main character to someone who feels trapped and limited by her circumstances to someone who takes risks and weaves circumstances into the best she can make with them is really very masterful.One of my favorite parts was the cleverness of the main character in dealing with the false charges against her near the end of the book (where her accusers and in fact the royal family must be at least as at fault as she is, if not more, in order to convict her), Likewise, the main character's final confrontation with the sorceress at the end is also very cleverly crafted to show not only the strength and beauty of the character, especially in the believability of the conversations and outcomes, but also the cleverness of the author in being able to create an emotionally charged, believably risky, and satisfyingly resolved problem on issues like justice, revenge, compassion, respect, self-awareness, and hope.What was most challenging to me in this book was the plot focus, or rather, the plethora of threads always threading in and out of the main plot. In one sense I don't think its terrible to build a story or a character or a setting and offer background information or side plots and details that are never clarified or resolved. Life is like this. People are like this. Often it can make stories more interesting. But in this case, there are also many plot threads that were central to the plot which don't get picked back up and are especially unsatisfying, including resolution (or lack of concern by the main character for any resolution?). Take, for example, the lack of resolution with her horrible family--isn't is a bit fair to suggest that her mother was rather correct in saying that she had deplorable statecraft skills because she was determined to publicly revenge/denounce her brother's petty joke and criminal accusation against a innocent servant? didn't she say so herself? how is it she can be so generous and understanding of her future husband's arguable worse overturning of justice on a much larger, more systematic scale because of total negligence and lack of interest? In fact, something else that continues to bother me is how her husband-to-be could realize so quickly (as he should, given the plot structures we find out later) that his bride isn't really his bride, and how quickly he comes to suspect that the goose girl is really his bride or something like, that he takes so little direct action, especially since he's trained in MAGIC, and even when he tries to win over the goose girl, he does so with all kinds of spoiled, selfish frustration that the servant won't fall over herself to do what he wants even though he does NOTHING to really help her out or understand her in almost any way. This more than anything else felt like a manufactured plot device to extend the story to a degree where the relationship between the goose girl and prince could be realistically, believably, romantic. Except that it's creepily un-romantic because it reveals what a complete moral loser the prince is at heart. The best redemption for him was his idealism in the sorceress's wasteland, but if his idealism for what a perfect kingdom would look like continues to fail to account for the real needs of the people (who starve and walk in danger of their lives and safety and have little or no hope of justice from their sovereigns who think all's well), then it's a poor idealism.These are not just peripheral plot issues; they question the very resolution of the story. The resolution of the story is ostensibly that the prince finds his girl, the girl gets what she should have had to begin with, and the future has a better promise for everyone (prince, princess & future kingdom). And although this is all true, it is a bit uncomfortable to think that the poor princess who has gotten such a raw deal from the very first with her terrible family and life of fear, and moves from a prison of silence to a prison of someone else's body and servitude to quite literally a prison of stone and then of magic--that she should end up with...a kind of prison of duty. Throughout the story she's not sure she can stay in this kingdom and fight for its justice and fight against her impostor and fight the unknown sorceress, but she chooses to anyway. In the end, she's not sure she loves the prince, but she thinks she can; she's not sure it's worth seeing if there's more to him that the rather selfish person who treats so many things as less valuable and less worthy of his attention than himself, but she does. And so she stays, and hopes for more, and finds she has to keep more secrets to make that work too. Maybe that's a more realistic ending than "happily ever after," but it a little disappointing that after such a lot of horrible circumstances that she's been bound by in the past, she finds herself bound to a man who acts like a child by comparison of character, and whose most redeeming quality is, in fact, a kind of child-like fancy/friendship and hope that despite his own selfishness, this woman will love him anyway. If I could change one thing, it might have been to give the main character, who narrates the story, some deeper glimpse into the prince's authority and character that extends beyond the few times she meets him. It would be nice if he was a believably good match for her, and that his selfish lack of concern for his people is really the result of his time-consuming mage studies and father's overbearing control over kingdom affairs. It's somewhat acceptable to be blind by circumstances, but that he doesn't even investigate the injustice she lays before him, knowing as he does that he has every reason to trust her, still frustrates me.

I loved this book - my first introduction to this author - and it inspired me to go on and gobble up all her other published works. It's not only a wonderful story, it also got me thinking about ethical decisions, and how difficult it can be to do the right thing in a complex world. If you like strong, intelligent lead characters, a well-crafted fantasy world and books that inspire, be sure to read Thorn.

The media could not be loaded.  I really enjoyed this book, the twists and turns. This takes an intricate and unique look into the fairytale and how a persons outlook and decisions affect their life. Also the political aspects of the story were handled deftly. I especially liked the princess' growth. The princess has a passive personality in the beginning, she grows a spine along the way. Beautifully done.

Brilliant author, great story. Well writen, inspired prose. Characters believablle. There is breadth and depth in this author. Strongly recommend.

I don’t often re-read books, there’s just too many books to read! But as I received the third book of this trilogy I knew I needed to refresh my memory of the story line. As I skimmed through the first part I fell in love with the prose again to read more carefully and hardly took my nose out of the book until it was done.Khanani crafts a carefully restrained love story in the midst of a battle for truth over lies while examining the themes of leadership and justice. Using a wide variety of characters she shows the way in which victims of justice resort to villainy or rise above their circumstances through integrity. Is redemption possible? So looking forward to revisiting book two and diving into book three.

Está muy bien escrito y aunque sea un cuento y en teoría ya sabes cómo va acabar le da unos twists muy agradables.