2023 Reading Challenge: a book with a love triangle

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


3.5 stars actually.

An interesting combination of Sleeping Beauty/Rapunzel with Persian folklore.

A princess, cursed since infancy to be poisonous to the touch and as such kept separated from her royal family and never knowing the touch of another person not through layers of fabric, forced to watch the world from a distance.

Just before her twin brother's wedding, she learns that a demon has been captured after it attempted to assassinate him. She also meets the man who captured the demon and has become part of the royal guard.

This man looks at her with understanding and doesn't see the monster she feels she is. He agrees to help her sneak into the dungeon to talk to the demon to see if there is away to remove the curse.

But the question comes - who is the real monster of the story?

++++

I was mostly ambivalent towards this story. I liked the combining of Persian folklore with European fairy tales.

There were "twists" in the story that were kinda predictable, but the seeing it coming did not diminish from the overall. I found the Princess annoyingly naïve but at the same time it worked as she's been a reclusively shut-in.

I honestly would have liked to have seen the Princess embrace the "monsterous" within her but that's my personal choice.

I will continue to look for this author's work as I read her other book last year.



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