It wasn’t that Zuhra had no characterisation beyond her relationship with Inara, it just felt as though she had clear priorities and expectations of the world.

Zuhra didn’t read like that to me, she knows what she wants, and mostly what she wants is to protect her sister.

So often my big problem with these kinds of ‘trapped in a castle/tower/spaceship/underground bunker’ stories is that the main character turns into this strange fantasy-obsessed individual just desperate to recreate the great romances they’ve read about.

She might get rejected when she flirts with someone but that’s ok there are bigger things happening let’s not dwell. One of the things I loved about Zuhra is that she kind of took things as they came. That being said, I thought Zuhra was a very realistic character, by that I don’t mean that she was believable, I mean she was a realist. That’s not a problem, but those expecting an older YA heroine might be a little disappointed. I enjoyed Zuhra as a character, I’m not sure she read as eighteen most of the time – I personally felt she read a little younger than that, but I think that could be as a result of her long isolation from the world. However, if you’re really feeling a YA read – this is a great example. With that in mind, I think if I had read this book when I was feeling a little ‘over’ YA I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I did. You’ve got sisters, you’ve got a difficult mother/parent situation, a big wall of thorns, a lot of secrets and mystery surrounding magic – I think we could all name a number of books that feel similar to that. This book has a lot of what I would call ‘classic YA fantasy’ elements. Inara inherited their father’s Paladin power her eyes glow blue and she is able to make plants grow at unbelievable rates, but she has been trapped in her own mind because of a “roar” that drowns everything else out―leaving Zuhra virtually alone with their emotionally broken human mother.įor fifteen years they have lived, trapped in the citadel, with little contact from the outside world…until the day a stranger passes through the hedge, and everything changes. On that same night, a massive, magical hedge grew and imprisoned them within the citadel. Zuhra and Inara have grown up in the Citadel of the Paladins, an abandoned fortress where legendary, magical warriors once lived before disappearing from the world―including their Paladin father the night Inara was born. “The night my sister was born, the stars died and were reborn in her eyes…”. I realised I actually really wanted to read some YA fantasy and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Larson’s book Sisters of Shadow and Light. I love a big book as much as the next person but found I really wanted a bit of a palette cleanser. Hello Humans! Recently, I feel like most of my reading has been taken up with chunky fantasy books.

Sara b larson books