Thorn by Intisar Khanani

For my last read in November, I decided to go with another pick from my StoryGraph Onboarding Challenge, Thorn by Intisar Khanani. This book went with the prompt to "read a book corresponding to my most preferred mood." According to Storygraph's analysis of my reading data, my preferred mood is "emotional." Honestly, that sounds pretty legit to me. I looked through my recommendations on the site and selected the first book on the list with the emotional tag. This was the third one down. I hadn't heard of Thorn at all before I saw it on StoryGraph, but it had been a long time since I got lost in a young adult fantasy, so I was eager to give it a try.

The story follows Princess Alyrra. As the story begins, she is betrothed to a prince from a wealthy neighboring kingdom. While she is nervous to marry someone she doesn't know, she is relieved to be leaving her family behind. Her father passed away years ago, leaving her with a cruel mother and an abusive brother. This marriage provides her with a way out, so she begins her trip to her new home hopefully. However, complications arise on the journey there when an evil sorceress appears and switches Alyrra into a different body. Instead of a princess, she becomes a mere goose girl, living near her new kingdom's stables. Part of the curse makes it so Alyrra is unable to reveal her true identity, so she can't explain what happened to anyone. She is stuck being someone else. 

As Alyrra settles into her new life, she comes to embrace the simplicity and anonymity of it. She is released from the constant pressure she felt as a royal and she is free from her hurtful and manipulative family. She changes her name to Thorn and settles into her new routine. As she begins to make some friends, she starts thinking that she could get used to living this way. She is greatly tempted to just continue living in the wrong body and fade into the background. However, her conscience won't let her completely leave her old life behind. The evil sorceress put a girl she can control into Alyrra's original body, and has been using her in an attempt to destroy the royal family. Thorn finds that she can't stand by and do nothing. She must find a way to come forward and protect her kingdom from danger, even if it means giving up her chance at a quiet life.   

I am surprised to say that I actually really enjoyed this novel. It hit several of my guilty pleasure tropes - a fairytale inspired plot, a Cinderella-esque heroine, some hurt/comfort scenes, and a slow burn romance. I wouldn't say this was a fast-paced read, but I found it consistently engaging and moved through it pretty quickly. I liked how Thorn was a quiet character that relied on intuition, kindness, and hard work to solve her problems. That's the kind of person I try to be, and I love seeing quiet, good characters in books. It makes a nice change from the bold warrior-women heroines that I see all the time. I don't mean to say that those types of characters aren't great too, but I have a soft spot for more introverted ones. The author did a nice job with details and character development too. The universe of this novel felt suitably complete and the main characters had nice growth arcs throughout the story.

I don't have many criticisms of the book to discuss. I honestly found this to be one of the better fantasies I've read lately. There is a sequel to this coming out in March of 2021 and I definitely plan to pick it up when it comes out, so I'd say that this pick was a perfect one. When I first started this StoryGraph Challenge, I was really interested so see how accurate their recommendations would be for me. Out of the books I found using their filters so far, I have liked or really liked almost all of them. I would say that their book suggestions are much better and more personalized than Goodreads, and I'm interested to see how the rest of this challenge will play out. I've got four books left on it, and I do not think I will be able to finish them all before the end of the year, but I am excited to see if this trend continues. 

Challenge Tally

StoryGraph Onboarding 2020 Challenge: 8/12

Total Books Read in 2020: 79