A review by poisonenvy
Sandry's Book by Tamora Pierce

adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Sandry's Book, and obviously the rest in the Circle of Magic series is very clearly a kids book. It was still enjoyable to read as someone in their mid-30s, but I'm clearly not the target audience. 

It also seemed to lack... Well, a plot? For the story? The story follows Briar, Sandry, Tris and Daja as they're taken from whatever circumstances they were in (none of them good) and brought to a magic school. There, they learned magic and learn to become friends despite their entity different lives and circumstances. 

There is very clearly going to be an overarching plot over the four books of the series, and it was sort of touched on in this one. But as far as having a beginning, a middle, and an end, this novel on its own did not. It is only a beginning. 

Anyway! It was fun! I'm excited to continue on with this series, and I am very sure that this series is going to be one of those ones that matured with its readers, so I'm excited about that! 

I read the ebook alongside the full-day audiobook. And the audiobook was... Fine? But Tamora Pierce did the narrator narration (whereas different actors did all the rest of the characters) and she is very clearly *not* an audiobook narrator and her reading was awkward. Not enough for me to not enjoy the series, but it wasn't great haha.