First, some basics.
Rae Carson's Walk On Earth A Stranger begins in 1849 in Dahlonega, Georgia. The protagonist, 15-year-old Leah Westfall and her parents are living on a plot of land her father got through a land lottery. Leah's dad, Rueben Westfall, his brother, Hiram, and the woman who would become Leah's mom are originally from Boston. The three were friends there and moved to Georgia for its gold rush in 1829.
Let's step out of the book to ask a question: what do you (reader) know about that lottery?
As a Native woman and professor who taught American Indian Studies courses at the University of Illinois, I know a lot about Native history. I know about that lottery. For decades before Georgia held that land lottery in 1832, the Cherokee Nation fought with the State of Georgia and its citizens who had been encroaching on Cherokee land.
The Cherokee Nation went before the Supreme Court where it was decided, in 1832 (yes, same year as that lottery) that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign nation and that Georgia and its citizens had no standing or claim on that land. President Jackson, however, defied the Supreme Court and ordered the removal of the Cherokee people. At the Cherokee Nation's website, you can read some of the history. Forced removal started in 1838.
Leah would have been a little girl when that forced removal started. As a little girl, she was likely unaware of Removal and unaware of what that lottery meant to Cherokee people. For her, it is her daddy's land. Someone else in Walk On Earth A Stranger, however, knows about removal, first hand.
Leah's potential love interest is a guy named Jefferson McCauley. His father is an Irish prospector who drinks and beats Jefferson. His mother? She's Cherokee, but in 1839 (removal, remember), she fled Dahlonega with her brothers and left Jefferson behind. He remembers her and a Cherokee story she told him, too, that is significant to how Jefferson thinks about himself.
The story Jefferson tells is about eight boys who are brothers. Angry at their mother, they run away from her, and leap into the sky. She grabs one, bringing him back to earth. The seven brothers who got away become the Ani'tsutsa (Pleiades). Jefferson imagines he is the brother who was pulled down, that he stayed, and that he has something like brothers out there somewhere, and that he'll find them someday. When he leaves Dahlonga (Leah and Jefferson will soon be headed to California for the gold rush), he feels that he's done wrong, because he is supposed to stay.
The story Jefferson tells, however, isn't like the one the Cherokees actually tell. The way they tell it, the boys that run away are not brothers, and the one that is pulled to earth strikes the earth so hard that it swallows him. He's gone, too. His mother sheds tears on that site and eventually, a tree sprouts. It becomes the pine tree. Quite different from the story Jefferson tells, isn't it! Regular readers of AICL know that I object to writers using/twisting Native stories to fit the story they want to tell.
In the Author's Note, Carson lists sources for the emigrant stories she used to create Walk On Earth A Stranger. She obviously found the Ani'tsutsa story somewhere, but doesn't tell us where. She doesn't list any sources specific to the Cherokee Nation, at all, which makes me wonder how she created Jefferson and his voice. Could we say that she didn't need any Cherokee sources because Jefferson is sufficiently assimilated and is no longer Cherokee? Maybe, and yet, he remembers that story and thinks fondly of his mother. As the wagon train crosses the midwest, he never thinks of or expresses an interest in going to find his mother and his uncles. Maybe he's mad at them for leaving him behind.
Or maybe he is, as I suggested above, assimilated. That would explain why he is headed west to be a prospector, just like all the other people who did that. Certainly, it is plausible that a Native person would want to do that, but I find it unsettling to create a Native character--who lost his mother because of gold--wanting to head West to be a gold prospector on lands that belonged to other Native peoples.
That said, Jefferson looks Native, with black hair and sharp cheekbones. Along the trip west, he is conscious of his Native identity and concerned that people will figure out who he is. People know he's not White but don't know just what he is. Sometimes he is angry when racist men talk about Indians stealing from the wagon trains and kidnapping children, but he keeps that anger to himself. At another point, however, he speaks in a matter of fact way, saying that people are afraid of Indians. Leah is aware of all these incidents and his emotions. She commiserates with him--but sometimes she wonders about Indians, too, and hides those feelings from Jefferson.
Because Jefferson is seeking gold, and because his way of speaking/thinking about Indians is inconsistent, we might say he is conflicted about his identity.
Or... maybe something else is going on. Maybe he is just a device in the story. What he endures makes it possible for readers to view Leah as a Good White Person, worried for him and his well-being. She does this for other characters, too. "Free Jim" is one. The runaway slave, Hampton, is another. And the bachelors who are headed to San Francisco where they can live as they choose... Native people, Blacks, Gays... I think all are devices by which readers see this girl who gets across the country dressed as a boy, as a Good White Person.
~~~~
Thus far, the problems I've described are familiar ones that occur in depictions of Native people, culture, and history. By that I mean stereotypical and biased storylines that omit key points in history.
Carson does something that--for me--is reprehensible. Yes, that is a strong word, but let me explain.
People hold two kinds of images of Indians in their head. The noble one (that's Jefferson) and the savage one (that's the ones who steal and kidnap kids). Both are problematic because they shape what people know about us. When writers in children's and young adult literature do it, they're shaping what kids know. They are teaching something to readers. Through their words, writers are, in effect, touching the future (wise words from Christa McAuliffe). They are creating images for their readers. What kind of images of Indians--beyond Jefferson--does Carson give her readers? What did I find reprehensible?
Carson's Grave Robbing IndiansThe image that Carson adds to what people carry around in their heads is one of Indians as grave robbers. This starts in chapter twenty. By then, Leah/Lee and Jefferson are working for Mr. Joyner. On his wagon are his household goods and his family. Carson has been presenting him as a racist white man.
We see his racism again when the wagon train comes upon a grave. Men from the wagon train investigate. When Joyner returns to his family's wagon, he tells them that Indians did it. Jefferson, "tight and coiled like a thunderstorm about to let loose," asks "Indians killed him?" (p. 234). Joyner says it wasn't a him, but a her. Lee wants to say there's no way to know what she was buried in but thinks it won't do any good. Joyner says (p. 235):
"Truly, these savages have no fear of God nor love of the white man."
Jefferson rides away at that point. Further down the page, Lee thinks (p. 235):
I don't know what to think about the Indians. Seems to me we don't really know anything about them. We don't even know what we don't know.
There is, for me, an irony to those words. They're meant to ask readers to pause and question what they know about Indians. But to get there, Carson introduces a new image: Indians who rob graves of Whites.
Did that happen?
One of Carson's sources is
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, edited by Lilian Schlissel.
In it is the diary of Catherine Haun. She writes of a woman named Martha. On the night of the 4th of July, Haun's wagon train is having a celebration. In the midst of it, Martha and a young child stumble into camp, incoherent and disheveled. The next day, Martha tells them what happened: her husband and sister got cholera. Because of that, the rest of their wagon train left them behind, in their own wagon. Martha's husband and sister died. Martha and her brother were burying her sister when Indians attacked. Martha fled with her little girl. Two days later, Haun's wagon train comes upon Martha's abandoned wagon. They find that her sister's grave is still open and Martha's husband is where they left him, dead, in the wagon. Their clothing is missing and there is no sign of Martha's brother or Martha's little boy. Later on the page, Haun writes that Indians spread smallpox among themselves by digging up bodies for their clothing, and later in Haun's diary, we learn that Martha was reunited with her son. Indians had taken him and traded him for a horse.
Hence, in Haun's account, Carson has a source for the grave-robbing Indians she depicts in
Walk on Earth a Stranger. But take a look at this page from Schlissel's book. The column on the left is from Cecilia McMillen Adams's diary. On the right is an excerpt from Maria Parson's Belshaw's diary.
On the next page (not shown) is the account of Caroline Richardson. On June 1 she wrote "Graves now are often partly dug up." She doesn't say Indians did it. Might she have thought that? We don't know. Angeline Ashley noted 47 graves. Esther Hanna noted 102. Neither Angeline or Esther notes graves that have been dug up. Overwhelmingly, I think Carson's source notes a large number of graves, but ones dug up by Indians? No.
Enter, again, my own identity as a Native woman and scholar. Do you know about
NAGPRA? That is a law passed in the United States Congress. It is all about graves being robbed. Native graves, that is. For literally hundreds of years, people have been digging up Native graves. Human remains and artifacts, dug up and sold on the black market, or collected and deposited in museums.
Through NAGPRA, those remains are being returned to Native Nations for reburial. That sort of thing is still happening. It was in the news just this week.
Actors in the film, Maze Runner, were shooting at a Native cemetery. They took artifacts because "who doesn't?"
But let's come back to Carson's sources.
In the introduction to
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, Schlissel writes that the letters and diaries in her book are "accounts of singularities" and that only "when the patterns emerge with regularity can one believe the responses are representative" (p. 11). Is Haun's singular account one that ought to be introduced to young readers as Carson has done?
In
Walk on Earth a Stranger, she introduces that image and leaves it open-ended for her readers to sort out.
Therein lies the problem. This image of grave robbing Indians fits what people think they know about Native peoples: primitive, depraved, less than human, savages. Carson doesn't come back to tell us that, in fact, it is not representative of the historical record.
What she did is quite the opposite. In the preface to Schlissel's book, Carl N. Degler writes that (p. xvi):
Whereas men usually emphasized the danger from the Indians and told of their fights with the native peoples, the women, who admittedly often started out fearful of the Indians, usually ended up finding them friendly in manner and often helpful in deed. Women, it seemed, had no need to emphasize Indian ferocity.
Friendly Indians? Helpful Indians? That is the image of Indians women had at the end of their journey. It is not the image of Indians that readers have when Lee and her group get to California. Let's look at another episode Carson provides.
When Lee's wagon train is at Fort Hall (chapter twenty-nine), they hear this story (p. 369):
"We had a situation here a few weeks ago, where an Indian offered a man three horses in exchange for one of his daughters. The settler joked that if the Indians gave him six, it was a deal. This joke, as it were, at his daughter's expense, nearly led to bloodshed, when the Indian came back with the horses."
I found a similar story in another of Carson's sources:
Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849, edited by Kenneth L. Holmes. In it, the horse trading story ends like this. The Indian (p. 33):
"followed our wagons for several days and we were glad to get rid of him without any trouble."
Quite a different image, isn't it? I assume Carson read through her sources, but why does she give us such a different image of Indian people, given what her sources told her about them?
~~~~
One might argue that Carson is even-handed in depicting racism. Indians rob graves, but what about Mr. Joyner? He puts fear of Indians in his wife's mind again and again. He puts measles infected blankets in a grave so the Indians can get sick when they dig up that grave. Pretty dang racist, right?
On one hand, we have grave robbing Indians, and on the other, we have Mr. Joyner and Frank (another White man who is depicted as racist).
Notice that Carson gives us
Indian people as a group who are horrible, versus
specific White individuals who are horrible.
Carson effectively tells us to hate Mr. Joyner and Frank as racists, but why did she not individualize those Indians on the trail in some way, guided by her sources? Why does she have that grave robbing part in there?
It'd be terrific if she would tell us why.
As noted in the title of this post, Rae Carson's
Walk On Earth A Stranger is not recommended. Published in 2015 by Greenwillow, it is currently on the long list for the National Book Award. I hope someone shares this review with members of the committee. Carson's book debuted on the New York Times best sellers list. That, I think, is based on her previous work, but I'm sure the publisher's huge marketing campaign helped get it on that best seller list.
_________________
For further reading:
Notes I took as I read Carson's bookA Tumblr post I wrote after I shared my notes
Walk on Earth a Stranger (Gold Seer Trilogy)
by Rae Carson. Greenwillow Books. 2015. Reviewed from ARC.
The Plot: 1849 Georgia. Leah Westfall lives with her parents, and together they hide her secret: she can find gold. It calls to her. To the rest of the world, her father is lucky; a luckiness that the family has to hide.
Her world comes crashing down when her parents are murdered and Leah finds herself running for her life. But where to go, what to do?
She can find gold. So she decides to go where everyone who has gold fever is going in 1849: California.
The Good: Oh, so much to like about Walk on Earth a Stranger!
First is, girls getting stuff done. At the start of the book, Leah is 15. She is devastated by the murders of her beloved parents, especially when she realizes who is behind it and that she is not safe. As a minor, and a woman, she has few options so she runs away. Dressed as a boy, and calling herself Lee.
So yes, this becomes a girl dressed like a boy story! Love. Leah binds her breasts and pleads modesty to explain her needs for privacy. And yes, Walk on Earth a Stranger is the type of book that doesn't shy away from things like Lee having to figure out what to do when she gets her period.
Lee's journey across the country is quite the adventure, by horse, by boat, by wagon. Pretending to be a boy gives her a level of safety and independence in her travels, but it doesn't totally protect her. It's still, at times, a struggle, and there are things -- there are people -- to fear.
Lee meets a wide assortment of people during her travels. One friend from the start is a neighbor and quasi-romantic interest, Jefferson. What I like about Jefferson is that he doesn't save her, and Lee doesn't need saving; they are friends, who may become something more, but they are equals. At times there are secrets and misunderstandings between the two, but the friendship is constant.
At least half of the book is the journey to California. It's not easy; there are difficulties, based on the method of travel, the ignorance and naivety of some of the travelers, and problems with some of those they are traveling with. Lee sees firsthand the hatred and fear of those in their party towards Indians, ranging from malicious actions to making up stories. She also sees it in how Jefferson (whose mother was Cherokee) is treated and talked about.
The people traveling to California are an odd mixture, bound together mainly by need and timing. It includes families and young men; people hoping to make their fortune finding gold and people hoping to make their fortune off of the gold seekers.
The Joyner family is the one that Lee travels with the longest, and so perhaps that is why the Joyners, and Mrs. Joyner especially, fascinates me. The Joyners are a well off family, bringing their furniture with them, insisting on tablecloths and china at meals. They have prejudices and biases typical of their time. (The interactions, or lack of interactions, between families based on religion and background is another fascinating part of the story.) The trip itself takes the family physically out of their comfort zone, and as the story continues Mrs. Joyner is continuing pushed beyond her comfort zone. Her character trajectory, when she rises to the occasion, when she falls, makes me hope to see more of her in the second book. Once in California, will she fall back to who she was? Or continue to grow and adapt?
Finally, what I like is that Lee's gift is not an easy answer. "Finding gold" sounds wonderful but the reality, not so much. Her parents, for example, knew that they had to be careful about who knew how much they had found; and also to take a care of whose gold is found. I liked the way that Lee used her gift in ways other than prospecting.
Walk on Earth a Stranger ends with Lee in California, and I liked that resolution, that the book was all about Lee's journey and about her gathering around her a small group of people she can trust. I'm looking forward to the next book, not just to find out more about Lee and her friends, but also to see if some of the many questions raised in the first book get answered.
And yes, I adore Rae Carson and her writing, so of course this is a Favorite Book Read in 2015.
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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
A few weeks ago, I started to hear about Rae Carson's Walk the Earth a Stranger. The first chapters are online. I've started reading the sample chapters today because her book is on the longlist for the National Book Award. I ordered a copy of the book and will be back to finish this review when I finish reading her book. In my notes below, I raise some questions.
Walk the Earth a Stranger is published by Greenwillow and has a character, Jefferson, whose mother is Cherokee. Here's the synopsis:
The first book in a new trilogy from acclaimed New York Times-bestselling author Rae Carson. A young woman with the magical ability to sense the presence of gold must flee her home, taking her on a sweeping and dangerous journey across Gold Rush era America. Walk on Earth a Stranger begins an epic saga from one of the finest writers of young adult literature.
Lee Westfall has a secret. She can sense the presence of gold in the world around her. Veins deep beneath the earth, pebbles in the river, nuggets dug up from the forest floor. The buzz of gold means warmth and life and home—until everything is ripped away by a man who wants to control her. Left with nothing, Lee disguises herself as a boy and takes to the trail across the country. Gold was discovered in California, and where else could such a magical girl find herself, find safety?
Rae Carson, author of the acclaimed Girl of Fire and Thorns series, dazzles with the first book in the Gold Seer Trilogy, introducing a strong heroine, a perilous road, a fantastical twist, and a slow-burning romance, as only she can.
Summary is in regular text; my comments are in italics.
~~~~~
January of 1849
Chapter One
The main character, Leah, is out hunting. She’s wounded a deer and is tracking it when she comes across a sensation she’s come to know as one she gets when she’s near a gold nugget, or, a gold vein. She finds the deer, kills it, and wants to cut the parts she can carry but the “gold sense” overwhelms her and she starts digging in the snow till she finds a nugget the size of a large, unshelled walnut. Her gold sense tells her it is about 90% pure, and will be worth a hundred dollars.
On page 8 we learn about Jefferson—or rather—his dad. Leah remembers him thinking she had a good aim. We learn that Leah works hard, hunting and farming, and panning for gold, too, because her dad has no sons who would do that work. Girls in town poke fun at her strong hands and strong jaw. She’s glad they don’t know about her gold sense.
Chapter Two
We meet Leah’s dad, who is sick with a violent cough. He tells her a much-loved story about a nugget he’d found when she was a baby, and how he’d hid it, but two-year-old Leah had found it. He re-hid it, and she found it again. That’s how they learned about her gold sense. They keep it secret because people would want her to find gold for them, especially since “the Georgia gold rush played itself out long ago” (p. 13). Surface gold is mostly gone, but Leah knows there’s more, deep underground. She also knows that it would take more than her and her dad and pickaxes to get at it. Her dad doesn’t want to buy slaves to get it because he was raised Methodist and that "back in the day" the church was against slavery.
Debbie's comments:
Georgia... homeland of the Cherokee Nation. They were forcibly removed from their homelands. Though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that they were a sovereign nation, President Jackson defied the Supreme Court and ordered their removal. They were rounded up in 1838. Many were held in prison camps awaiting departure for Indian Territory. Carson gestures to history of Methodists and slaves, but doesn't give readers similar context for who owned this land prior to Leah and her family.
Her dad asks her where she found the nugget and they realize she found it on McCauley land. She wants to keep it but her dad tells her she can’t keep it. Her dad says he’ll return it when he goes to Charlotte, NC to assay the bag of gold dust they keep hidden. Turning it in in town would draw people to their property. Taking it to Charlotte is better because no one there knows them. But, since he’s not well, Leah thinks her dad is not likely to make the trip. She offers to go but he won’t let her because it’d be dangerous.
Chapter Three
The next day, Leah takes their wagon to school. Something is not right. Kids aren’t rushing around playing. She looks for Jefferson (p. 20):
His face is framed by thick, black hair and a long, straight Cherokee nose he got from his mama. An old bruise yellows the sharp line of his cheekbone.
Debbie's comments:
Noting he is Cherokee and wondering how that will play out as I keep reading.
Jefferson has a newspaper in hand and tells her that gold has been discovered in California. It says that President Polk announced the discovery. Because gold is everywhere, Leah wonders how much is in California, such that the President would announce it. She tells him she thinks that everyone in the town, Dahlonega, are going to go to California. Dahlonega “was built on a gold rush of its own” (p. 21).
Debbie's comments:
Dahlonega. Sounds like a Native word. Carson tells us that Dahlonega was built on a gold rush but again, doesn't tell readers who that land belonged to. I'll look up history of that town.
Jefferson thinks there’s plenty of gold out there and says “someone like me could…” We learn (by way of narration) that his dad is a “mean Irish prospector” and that is mom is “a sweet Cherokee mama who fled with her brothers ten years ago, when the Indians were sent to Oklahoma Territory” (p. 21). Nobody in town blames her for taking off. His “someone like me” means (p. 22):
“a stupid, motherless Injun,” which is one of the dumber things people call Jefferson, if you ask me, because he’s the smartest boy I know.
Debbie's comments:
Oh... this is interesting. His mom "fled" in 1839 when they were "sent" to Oklahoma Territory... I think that's soft-pedaling what happened. Both words are accurate, but both also obscure the violence and the very important history of the Cherokee Nation's long fight to keep their land, that they ended up in the Supreme Court who ruled in their favor, that President Jackson ordered their removal! Cherokee's fled, but they were being chased by armed soldiers and the militia, too. I'm not sure why her son stayed behind. I'll dig in to some materials and see how that could have worked. It is possible, of course, but here's where I get into plausibility.
That said, my gut clenches to think of Jefferson heading west to seek gold. Is he going to do to California Indians what was done to Cherokees?
Good that Carson pushes back right away on the "stupid Injun" but wondering what it adds to the story to have it there in the first place. Right now it seems like it serves to make Leah out to be A Good White Person (using caps there, thinking of Anne Sibley O'Brien's comment to my post about dinner with Deborah Wiles).
Leah and Jefferson talk about how much it would cost for them to head to California. He invites her to go with him, that they can tell people they’re married, or a brother and sister. As she heads home after school, she thinks about marriage, and Jefferson. She hears two shots and when she gets home discovers someone has killed her dad. Her mom is also shot and tells her to trust someone, that they were wrong to be alone as they have been. She tells her to run, and then dies.
Chapter Four
Leah grabs a gun and heads to the McCauley homestead, seeking Jefferson. At his house, his dad is drunk. She finds Jefferson at the woodshed, chopping wood. He tells her that everyone in town thinks her dad has a stash of gold and that once they hear of his death they’ll be there, looking for it. Leah tells him it is true. When they get to her house, she stays outside while Jefferson goes in to look around. As she waits, she can’t feel the hum of her gold sense and realizes the bag of gold dust is gone.
Chapter Five
Inside, she lifts the floorboards where they kept the bag. It is gone. It was worth over a thousand dollars. She finds the nugget and gives it to Jefferson. He says he wishes she had trust him with their secret and she thinks of how much else he doesn’t know (about her gold sense). The next few days are a blur. Nobody else’s home has been bothered, so the Sheriff thinks it was just someone passing through who had heard the stories of their stash. Finding nothing, that person kept on going.
The day of her parents’ funeral, Jefferson tells her he’s going west and wants her to go with him. With her gold sense, she thinks that “California is the Promised Land” (p. 46) but thinks she can’t leave her home. Jefferson goes on without her, saying he’ll wait for a while, in Independence.
Chapter Six
Leah goes to the funeral service for her parents. People are stirred up but it isn't about the death of her parents; it is about the news of gold in California. Jefferson's dad is there. After the funeral he asks her if she knows where Jefferson is, but she doesn't tell him that Jefferson is on his way to Independence. Her Uncle is there, too, and she spots his revolver. She figures out he is the one who killed her parents. He moves in to their house. She decides to go to California.
~~~~~
That's it for now. I'll be back when I get the book...
The Girl of Fire and Thorns Rae Carson
So, I had heard good things about this one but had no desire to pick it up until ALA when Katie decided it was her mission in life to get me to read this book. So I did. THANK GOD FOR FRIENDS LIKE KATIE.
Elisa is the younger princess. She lacks the beauty, grace, charm, and political savvy of her older sister. But Elisa is the chosen one, blessed with the Godstone in her navel at her naming ceremony.
But it is Elisa, who is married off to a neighboring kingdom as part of a treaty to join forces against the invading North. But in her new home, her husband keeps their relationship a secret. There are political games afoot she doesn't understand.
And she wonders what service God has destined for her. She is the chosen one, but chosen for what?
And when she's kidnapped by rebels and sees the truth of what's happening on the borders, she must find a physical, mental, and emotional strength she doesn't think she has.
HOT DAMN.
Here are a few of the reasons why this book is totally awesome:
1. Excellent court intrigue.
2. Fast-moving and gripping plot, without being completely plot-driven.
3. Elisa's a great character. She has her limitations and is real, but never annoying. She has sister issues, but even when she wallows in them, she's trying to learn from them.
4. The way Carson handles lurve interests. They're a very MINOR part of the book (HALLELUJAH!) and I must admit I was very surprised by who she ends up with in the end. You won't see it coming. You'll wonder why more YA books don't do the same thing.
5. The way Carson handles religion. Religion is HUGE in this book (I mean, Elisa has been chosen by God. How could it not be?) It seems vaguely Catholic and Elisa finds such comfort and joy in worship, even as she struggles with the path God has given her. I love the ramifications of differing interpretations of the holy texts. I love the perversion of how the enemy practices. I love that's it not faith-based fiction, but religion is painted in a very positive light. It's something we don't see a lot of and Carson does it so very very well.
6. You know how most fantasies are set in a land and culture that is vaguely European? This one is Latin America. The dwellings are adobe and sandstone. Their skin is darker, their hair black. The northern barbarians are weird and scary with their blue eyes and light hair. Their names are Elisa, Alejandro, Ximena. It's awesome. Not just because we need SO MUCH MORE of this in our fiction, especially fantasy, but because the change of location was very refreshing.
7. Ok, apparently this is going to be a trilogy, but this book stands 100% alone. I will read the others because I loved this so much, but I don't need the others.
Overall, just freaking wonderful.
Book Provided by... my local library
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0 Comments on Girl of Fire and Thorns as of 1/1/1900
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so excited to read this book! great review. :)
I've been seeing this one around and looking forward to hearing more about it. Thank you for the wonderful review! I'm glad to hear it's not a sermon reading. :) And this one sounds like a wonderful read.
Your description of the book is gorgeous! The Spanish influence in the setting sounds so alluring, and Elisa sounds like a great protagonist! The Girl of Fire & Thorns has been sitting on my shelf since BEA; now I'm seriously tempted to read it this second! :)
Sounds like it has some really interesting themes in it