Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

Although I am no longer an avid YA reader, I do like to now and again pick up a YA title, especially if, like in the case of Girl, Serpent, Thorn, it promises to be sapphic. While Melissa Bashardoust’s prose is readable enough, even if it does occasionally veer into purple territories, her story and characters left a bit to be desired. The novel invests far too much time in a character that is not all that interesting and our protagonist spends most of her time in self-pity or playing the blame game.
Girl, Serpent, Thorn follows Soraya a princess who was cursed with a deathly touch (which reminded me of Rogue aka Anna Marie aka my all-time favourite Marvel character). Soraya’s curse is kept a secret from her family’s kingdom, and she has spent most of her days secluded from others. Around the time her brother’s wedding is announced two strangers arrive at the palace. One is a handsome young man who seems unperturbed by Soraya’s curse, and the other is a prisoner, a demon by the name of Pavenah.
I obviously approached this under the wrong impression as the first half of the story is centred upon the relationship between Soraya and this young man. The world is barely sketched out, the palace too remains largely undescribed, and the characters’ motivations weren’t always rendered in a convincing way. The romance(s) felt rushed and I would have much preferred the narrative to have a slow-burn romance between Soraya and Pavenah…but things don’t exactly pan out that way. Soraya spends the latter half of the story being plonked here and there, all the while going on about how she can’t trust the ones around her or having basic thoughts about who the real monster is…and I just…urgh. I did not like it. I found it repetitive and predictable. I am also so over the villain who tells the protagonist to “join them” because “together” they would be “unstoppable” and all. N-O.
The story took itself and its characters too seriously at times. The villain is cartoonish, Soraya is no antiheroine, merely an impulsive air-head, and
Pavenah…well, she could have been interesting but her presence is relegated to the latter half of the novel and by then I was sort of done with it all. And there are all these “betrayals” that had no real weight and the sheer abundance of them reminded me a bit of House of Flying Daggers.
All in all, this book was not for me. I doubt I would have finished it if it hadn’t been for the narrator of the audiobook version (she was great). But, I also recognise that maybe this is because I am no longer part of this book’s target demographic.

my rating: ★★½

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