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A review by maeverose
The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This one is equally as good as the first book to me, maybe even better. I liked it for all the same reasons I liked the first book; atmosphere, setting, writing, realistic characters, the interweaving of the folklore into the story, plus it has one of my favorite tropes (female character has to disguise herself as a man), and Vasya actually leaves her home to explore different towns/cities, including Moscow, and gets to be a badass (albeit pretty naive at times, but what do you expect from someone who's never left her very small town in the middle of nowhere until now?). I really grew to like Sasha in this book, despite him being a bit of an idiot sometimes (like why are you focused on your sister 'sinning' by dressing as a man when she just saved several kids LIVES?) The main antagonist was very predictable, not sure if he was supposed to be or not... but I didn't feel it took away from my enjoyment of the story at all.
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Violence, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: War
stillbirth