Review: Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

Release Date: July 7th, 2020

Genre(s): Young Adult, Fantasy, Retellings, LGBT

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Pages: 336

Rating: .5

Synopsis

Girl, Serpent, Thorn is a YA Fantasy and retelling based on Persian mythology. It follows Soraya, a princess who was born with a curse. Anyone who Soraya touches will succumb to death by poison. Her curse leads to her isolation from the rest of the world, and oftentimes, even her own family. As her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide whether or not to seek answers regarding her curse, and whether she can reverse it. But when her decisions lead to mayhem, Soraya realizes her true power – and questions the morality of her own intentions.

Review

It’s been a pretty long time since I’ve last read a retelling, which is odd for me considering how much I enjoy them. And Girl, Serpent, Thorn is no exception to this. Whether or not I’ve read the original text, I like how retellings give us alternate storylines to those texts and explore similar or different ideas. This book in particular is inspired by many different stories. According to the author’s note, it is a combination of the Shahnameh, Rappaccini’s Daughter, and Sleeping Beauty. The author’s note also provides a pretty thorough introduction to Persian mythology and the inspirations behind Girl, Serpent, Thorn. Basically, this book reminded me how much I enjoy retellings and how they’re great starting points for learning more about mythology and global texts. And I love that this book is YA as well, so that younger audiences will learn about the original stories as well.

Anyway, onto the story. I really liked the way Girl, Serpent, Thorn set the stage. I was also very invested in the characters introduced and their intentions. With some stories like these, you have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen and what the “twist” is, but that wasn’t the case at all here. Every chapter was a surprise to me and I enjoyed continuing to see how the story would pan out and what was going to happen to each of the characters. 

Despite this, there were times from the halfway point on where I slightly lost interest in the story – I would say for me personally that this story was the most interesting in the first half. I noticed that the first half of the book is a little more descriptive (especially in the setting) and that was something that I really liked. After that these things become a little more minimal and a little more dialogue-focused. This is likely something that’s more of my personal style, but it is something to keep in mind if you prefer books with more descriptive settings like I do.

Regardless, I’m really glad I picked up Girl, Serpent, Thorn. I would recommend this if you’re looking for a YA fantasy retelling, especially one that has been less commonly told. This book has a very heavy emphasis on the story itself as opposed to other elements, so if that’s your preference this will be a great fit for you. And now after reading it, I will definitely be researching (and reading one day) the original texts that inspired it.