Books Worth Rereading: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

I read Rae Carson's Girl of Fire and Thorns about a year ago and didn't think much of it. I recently reread it, and I think I must've just forgotten how awesome it was because this book is REALLY good.

 

 Here's the synopsis taken from Goodreads.com: "Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.
Elisa is the chosen one. But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can't see how she ever will. Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.
Most of the chosen do"

      

In terms of characters, Elisa is one of the best I've ever read, not just because she's really cool but because she's really well written. Sometimes I find it hard to relate to characters because their circumstances are so different from my own. Obviously the things you deal with are going to affect your personality, and in high fantasy books (like Girl of Fire and Thorn) the characters' world is completely different from your own, so often times it's hard to relate to the things they're dealing with, and the emotions they have. However, Rae Carson does a really great job of finding a few universal themes and giving them to Elisa, which makes her seem like someone who could exist both in our world and in hers, it makes her very relatable. She is self conscious and uncertain in a lot of areas, but there are also some things she knows she's good at, and trusts herself to do. It makes for a nice balance of self depreciation and confidence, which I think accurately represents a lot of teenage girls in today's world.

The book in general is also amazing. It’s high fantasy, so the world in the book is entirely different from our own. In the story, magic is seen as something evil. I love the idea of magic being forbidden, and the paradoxes it creates within the story. For example, magic isn’t good, but Elisa was granted access to magic by God, so if it was given to her by God, is it still bad? The landscape of the world they live in is also incredible. The majority of the first book takes place in the desert, but in the second (if you read it, which you should) takes them all over the world, and some of the places they encounter are just amazing, even if they’re only text on a page. While the blurb focuses mainly of the romantic aspects, the book has a lot more elements. I think romance is good, but only in measured doses. Girl of Fire and Thorn has some romance-y bits, but it also has a lot of fighting, magic-ing, and cleverness. Also, there are enough secrets to keep you interesting. I gasped out loud quite a few times while reading this.

The only complaint I hear about this book is that it's too religious, but I think you have to read it to understand. It's religious because it has to be. Part of Elisa's character is that she feels she has to prove herself not only to her people, but to God. If the "God" part were taken out of that, Elisa would not be half the character she is, and the book would be much less interesting.