Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

*Spoiler free*

There was and there was not, as all stories begin, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch. But for Soraya, who has lived her life hidden away, apart from her family, safe only in her gardens, it’s not just a story. As the day of her twin brother’s wedding approaches, Soraya must decide if she’s willing to step outside of the shadows for the first time. Below in the dungeon is a demon who holds knowledge that she craves, the answer to her freedom. And above is a young man who isn’t afraid of her, whose eyes linger not with fear, but with an understanding of who she is beneath the poison. Soraya thought she knew her place in the world, but when her choices lead to consequences she never imagined, she begins to question who she is and who she is becoming…human or demon. Princess or monster.

I feel like this book kind of snuck up on me. I had seen so many excitement and love for it on Twitter that I was intrigued. Then, I finally read the synopsis and it sounded really, really interesting. Then, the love for it continued on Twitter and I wanted to give it a shot.

This is the kind of book where I can’t find the words to describe it. It left me breathless. That’s the best way I can think of vocalizing how I felt about this book. I want to say it was so, so good, but I want to inject every single inch of love I have for it in there.

This book reminded me of Uprooted, but it is definitely it’s own unique story. It’s a fairy tale that’s all it’s own and it’s done really well.

This book is filled with poison. The poison under Soraya’s skin, the poison between family, the poison of secrets, and the poison of betrayal. It fills the entire book and it’s biting, but still something you want more of.

This book is filled with complicated emotions and complicated relationships. There’s so much hurt and so many things that are unknown. This leads to questionable actions, but I couldn’t even hold it against Soraya or anybody who made them. I understood where they were coming from. It was so complicated in the best way. It felt human, in a fantasy way if that makes sense haha. It’s about forgiveness and doing what needs to be done to survive. Ah, just I would usually not love a character as much as I love Soraya with the choices that she made. But it was written so well and the plot was so thought out and it was just so well done that I couldn’t help but love and sympathize with her.

The world was incredible. It felt so big and so full with just the few places that were shown. The history and every little detail was so well planned out and seemed so thoughtful. It felt really thoroughly done. The divs were very well written and I thought it was really clever they way their story turned out. The palace and the forests and the mountains were just so incredible. I found even the littlest details fascinating.

There were parts of this book that I felt disappointed that something happened, because I was expecting something different. But every single time, the book managed to turn that around on me and do something that was even better. Those part fit the plot so well and it allowed the story to flow in such an amazing way. There were little plot twists on top of big plot twists and all of them were just really well done.

And, there’s a f/f romance. It was more of a subplot, but it works for the book really well. It was sweet, but fierce and the two characters work together really well. They compliment each other really well. I really liked them.

And the writing was incredible. Just, it was really, really good. It made everything so much more incredible.

Gosh, it is very hard not to go into spoiler territory because I want to talk about everything that I loved about this book. Can I just give vague words that you’ll understand once you read it? The star blanket. The forest. The forest, the sap, and the moths. The thorns. The creature that was supposed to be super magical but I found super adorable haha. Betrayals. There is a lot of betrayal and they are all done so well. Alright, I’ll stop myself now.

Ah, I seriously, seriously loved this book. If it wasn’t obvious by now haha. It’s filled with emotion and poison and thorns and a princess trying to figure out if she’s more monster or princess. It was really, really good.

Girl, Serpent, Thorn comes out May 12, 2020! You can add it on Goodreads and pre-order a copy of your own!

Thank you for reading!