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a month ago

Alanna: The First Adventure Book Review Alanna: The First Adventure, which is the first book in the Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce, is the only book I have ever read in one day, despite my usual reading speed not being the fastest. Alanna is a younger identical twin, her older twin being her brother Thom. The twins have a problem in this book; Thom wants to study magic, though he’s being sent off to be a page and later a knight, and Alanna wants to become a knight one day, not study magic. She and Thom get into an argument, which precedes Alanna getting an idea. Her idea is to switch places, though it will be tricky to pull off, since they’re of the opposite sex. Thom is denying her idea, stating many reasons on why he thinks that it may not work. Finally he says, “What about Coram and Maude? They’ll be travelling with us, and they can tell us apart. They know we aren’t twin boys.” Coram is a soldier and swordsmith. The village healer, Maude, taught the pair of twins the basics of magic, and Coram is supposed to be traveling with Thom, while Maude traverses with Alanna. They contemplate many different ways to approach this carefully, to avoid getting caught. I liked that Tamora Pierce constructed the book to have Coram find out immediately that it’s Alanna and not Thom, but since Alanna knows some magic, and Coram dislikes magic, she threatens to use magic on him, blackmailing him if he tells anyone. It gives a sense of how much she hopes that she’ll be able to pull it off. They continue their journey to the castle, which made me joyful that it was included in the book—as some authors completely skip over instances like this—and when they reach it, Alanna is nervous, which adds realism to this book. There’s not really a lot in this book that I can say I didn’t like. I would have liked more exploration of the castle to be included. Was it majestic? Did it feel warm? Despite this, it does allow for my own imagination to be put into the story as I read this, the first book of the quartet. However, it is nice to have the author put her own idea of what most of the castle looks like, what it feels like to Alanna to be inside the castle—whose twin brother was actually supposed to be the one there—looking at the exterior and interior of the castle. In conclusion, I would undoubtedly recommend this book to people who enjoy high fantasy, as it is very layered. The plot is not hard to keep track of as it comes to one, which allows for one to read a couple other books, along with this one.