Review for Thorn Queen, by Richelle Mead

This title is the second book of this series. I must say that I started reading this series with a bit of skepticism. A young woman in Tucson, AZ banishing spirits into other worlds? Well, at first it just seems like a cheap gimmick that a mediocre television station would come up with - for a quick and dirty action drama. Throw in a little sex with pretty people, and the show's got itself made, right? So I wasn't impressed that much by the first book, even if the protagonist Eugenie seems to be my kind of sensible girl and her magical powers are blossoming. But Richelle Mead's compelling voice and descriptive characterization kept me going, and I gave the spiel a second try.

The voice and point of view are unwaveringly first person, which is great in terms of hiding other characters' intentions until the action comes to the fore. The author also demonstrates great characterization when readers remember who does what and why. While the fox Kiyo is still a main player this round, his motivations seem to be getting more vague. He claims to be looking out for Eugenie's bests interests, but there is this complication where he has to bring up a child he had with another woman other than the protagonist. I will be waiting to see how his feelings and motivations change during the third book, as well. But it's not as simple as that - Richelle Mead impressively uses the almost dead technique of allegory.

Eugenie's confusion and feelings for both Kiyo and Dorian come to be attached with her emotions for both worlds, human and gentry. While the fox-man has come to represent the more human and democratically oriented worldview, the fairy king now speaks for the city-state and feudally oriented medieval worldview. At the risk of reading too much into this one piece of fiction, one would think that Richelle Mead may be referring to the respective First World/Third World conundrum, or even the East West cultural clash. I favor the latter, obviously because I am what they call American Born Chinese.

There are other issues that she discusses as well, and I couldn't help but feel as I continued reading that this may be one of the most blatantly (and satirically?) political works of fiction that I've read in a long time. The first book had already touched on racism, when Eugenie's attitude towards the gentry started changing for the better. Maybe classism, as well, considering that there is no such thing as middle class among the gentry - someone is either nobility, or he is a peasant. I correct myself, the closest thing to middle class in the Otherworld consists of artisans and craftmen, who came embodied in the blacksmith Girald, only in this book.

To me, the villains here symbolized the medieval way of thinking, in which women are merely vassals to their parents and then their husbands - no matter their overall station in life. Beneath all the layers, that was the central conflict of the plot: the disagreeing opinions on the nature of love and the way a woman should be wooed, which also speaks of her self-value in a relationship as well. So Richelle Mead also discusses women's rights and feminism here, in Eugenie's sorting out her feelings in terms of which kind of man she prefers between Dorian and Kiyo. The only complaint I have involves how soon Eugenie returned to relatively normal after her traumatic experience. However, this is a fantasy fiction book with a high level of romance, and being more realistic about the emotional aftermath here would dampen that selling point by quite a bit.

Politics, human interactions, and Eugenie's having to figure all of this out with the help of her advisors who Dorian provided - all of these things make the Otherworld seem more real. In this book, the Otherworld seems to feel more substantial than the human world, if simply because Eugenie is both emotionally closer to her advisors than her parents and Kiyo at this point, which is complicated by her magical (read, soul-link) to her Thorn Land. This may also be because being a monarch, the ultimate decision maker, is far more challenging than being an anonymous spirit banisher. A challenge like that is bound to engage Eugenie, who has more of an ambitious and restless personality than she realizes, her righteousness aside.

Usually, I don't buy much into the New York Times' bestseller list, preferring to leaf through shelves by myself, but it seems as though their high ratings of her are correct. I still did have one serious complaint, though, for all my oohs-and-ahs over her writing, so personally, I'd give her 4.5 stars out of 5.