Wild Magic

!!!Spoiler Warning!!! If you haven’t read this book yet, I give away some key spoilers!

Wild Magic

by Tamora Pierce

You may look like a human, but you aren’t. You’re of the People: the folk of claw and fur, wing and scale.

I really, really enjoyed this book.
At it’s heart, it’s a book about a young girl with the epic name of Veralidaine Sarrasri. Daine, as she likes to be called, can hear and talk to animals. She’s imbued with wild magic which we must assume comes from her father’s side of the family.
She’s just young, but she’s already been through so much in her short life, including her mother’s death, and the burning of her farm.
She joins up with a horse trader and becomes her assistant.

I forget I’m human. I forget I’m me.

This book is filled to the brim with magic! There are magical creatures in abundance, most of which are highly recognizable to anyone with an interest in the area, as well as mages and spells and more!
There is a rather epic battle included in the book, too. I don’t normally like battle scenes, they can be rather dull if you’re not interested in weapons and fighting techniques, but this battle was written in a really engaging way, with characters you really feel about.

An idea made her jaw drop: if she’s a legend, and a hero, then anyone could be a hero.

There are quite a few female warriors in this book, too. In fact, it’s made into quite a big thing that women can wear breeches and fight in battles. Even the queen (hands down the best queen I’ve ever read about) gets involved in the fighting and training. Some of the menfolk actually have to stay home and look after the children. It’s pretty cool reading about it as though it’s perfectly normal. I really liked the way feminism was handled in this book.

We’re lucky to have mothers who fight. Our fathers must stay home and protect their people.

Then there are the characters to mention! It seems like every animal—from an owl, to a bat, to a whale—has a wholly unique character. They all have different voices and speak in completely different ways, and that’s just the animals! The people in the book are all really well fleshed out, in fact I believe several of them have their own books that evolve their characters further, too.

‘It’s about time I found you,’ he said. ‘Do you know how long I’ve been looking? I actually had to come into the Human Realms to get a scent of you!’

All in all, this was a splendid book that I enjoyed a lot. I’m hoping to immerse myself in Tamora Pierce‘s worlds again sometime soon!

Evil people say evil things to make good people cry and doubt. Don’t let them get that hold on you.

Villain Rating

Well now, this has sort of got me stumped. You see for the majority of the book there isn’t a villain to speak of at all. Then at the end we get an epic battle scene with a bunch of invaders believed to be from the nearby county of Carthak, so I guess really, the only villain I can really point a finger at, would be Carthak.

Unfortunately, we don’t really learn much about the country of its people. We know that in Carthak there has been a famine and it’s believed that the King is invading in order to get supplies for his people, but how much truth there is to that is never really revealed.  1/10

 

Happy Reading,

Claire