Book Review - Thorn

One of the latest YA fairytale adaptations to gain the attention of fantasy enthusiasts is Intisar Khanani’s Thorn, which puts a creative spin on the Brothers Grimm story The Goose Girl. Khanani first begun writing the story in 2001 when she was in college. She published Thorn independently as an e-book in 2012, but strong word of mouth led to YA Publishers HarperTeen buying it in October 2017. After Khanani did some revisions and edits, Thorn was published physically earlier this year. The UK publication of the novel was handled by Hot Key Books, who also published Stepsister and Robin Hood: Hacking, Heists and Flaming Arrows.

What’s It About?

Alyrra is the unappreciated princess of the kingdom of Adaniya, with an overbearing mother, a sadistic brother, and several bullying nobles making her life a misery. When she is chosen as a bride by Prince Kestrin, heir to the nearby kingdom of Menayia, Alyrra is sent to his kingdom to become the latest addition to Meniya’s royal family, with her bitter handmaiden Valka accompanying her on the journey. However, a mysterious witch called the Lady is plotting to get rid of Kestrin and sets a devious plan into motion. During the ride to Menayia, the Lady uses her spells to make Valka and Alyrra swap bodies, meaning that Valka is now the princess and Alyrra has to do menial work in the kingdom. Initially Alyrra is fine with not having to worry about court life, but as she gets to know the citizens of Menaiya and the problems they face, she realizes that letting Valka and the Lady take control of the kingdom would be a disaster. Aided by the talking horse Falada, some of her fellow workers, and a master thief called Red Hawk, Alyrra has to find a way of overcoming the obstacles set by Valka and the Lady, whilst concealing her secret from Kestrin, who knows far more about the situation than Alyrra expects…

Review

(Note: This Review Contains Spoilers )

The Goose Girl is essentially a “C-list” Brothers Grimm fairytale – well-known to Brothers Grimm fans, but rather obscure to casual audiences. It has a strong and simple premise – a princess is forced to swap positions with a resentful maidservant - but complicates this with fantastical and gruesome imagery. A lucky charm with three drops of a mother’s blood on it. A horse’s head which continues to talk after it gets slain. A king who uses a “magical stove” to get the protagonist to reveal the truth. A villain who falls for the ‘original position fallacy’, getting herself sealed into a barrel full of sharp spikes and dragged to her death by horses. This is the sort of quintessentially Grimm imagery that enthralls those who enjoy “darker” fairy tales and scares away those with a more sensitive disposition. As a result, The Goose Girl is not adapted as often as other Brothers Grimm stories. Although Disney have toyed with ‘prince/princess vs bitter servant’ premises in some of their films and TV shows (such as The Princess and the Frog and Tangled: The Series) the idea of a fully recognizable adaptation of The Goose Girl has never been considered by the studio. Their loss is Khanani‘s gain, as she provides a creative, original adaptation which highlights the strengths of the source material whilst effectively addressing its plot holes and turning its relatively passive lead into a memorable protagonist.

Thorn keeps to the basic template of The Goose Girl but expands it substantially- most of the key scenes and images find their way in, but there are several interesting twists along the way. The magical elements get examined in more detail, with sorcerers both good and evil getting added to the narrative. However, they do not overwhelm the story, with a lot of the overarching mythos (The Council of Mages, The Fae, The Snatchers, the historical relationship between humans and horses) being kept in the background in favor of more grounded political intrigues. The other main selling point of the story being the kingdom of Menaiya, where most of the story is set. This kingdom is a unique and well-drawn location, with a combination of temples and taverns, hot summers and snowy winters suggesting influences primarily from Turkey and the Caucasus. The reality of life as a potential princess is explored in substantial detail. Alyrra‘s struggle to master the local language and customs plays a key role in the story, and Valka is forced to seek help from Alyrra in order to keep up her ruse when sending letters to Alyrra‘s mother. Most importantly, Alyrra also has to witness the less appealing side of the kingdom, rife with theft, unsolved kidnappings, and a legal system which will respond brutally to crimes against the rich and fail to properly investigate crimes against the poor. There is also an undercurrent of dealing with male abuse and violence, as Alyrra’s brutish brother has given her a sense of trauma which flares up during intense interactions with aggressive male characters. The idea of Alyrra’s voice being supressed is effectively embodied by a cursed amulet which the Lady forces her to wear. This item prevents her revealing the truth about her situation, but even that is not as powerful as the more mundane fears which fuel Alyrra’s vulnerabilities. Thorn was in gestation long before #MeToo, but the cultural changes of late 2017 made this aspect of the novel seem more relevant and may have encouraged HarperTeen to discover it. However, the feminist messages are a secondary element, used to support the wider questions about how to be a responsible ruler in an often cruel and violent world.

Alyrra‘s lack of confidence in herself and struggle to find a role in life defines the first half of Thorn. In the second half, the story switches gears and becomes an exploration of the ethics of revenge and capital punishment in particular. When one of her workmates is viciously assaulted and later dies of her injuries, Alyrra’s attempts to find justice lead to her seeking help from Red Hawk, a powerful underworld figure who gets his men to inflict their own form of retribution on the killers. The themes about the ethics of crime and punishment are a driving force in Thorn’s two big climaxes. The first of these sees Alyrra being forced to keep her cool as Valka’s supporters put her on trial, before Valka’s bloodthirsty streak leads to the truth about her and Alyrra being exposed to all. After the trial, Alyrra has to rescue Kestrin from the mysterious Lady. In order to do this, she must assume the Lady’s form and confront Kestrin in two dangerous challenges which test his desire to take revenge. Thorn’s explorations of the boundary between justice and murder are genuinely thought-provoking and give the novel an edge which distinguishes it from other YA stories. One of Alyrra's fellow servants claims, “Hate is a strange thing. We do not always understand it”, and this line provides an effective summary of the challenges the cast faces. Almost all the major characters in Thorn would like to get revenge on those who wronged them in some way, and Alyrra‘s struggle to avoid this and find a better path is what marks her out as a worthy role model.

Thorn adopts a first-person narrative, keeping its focus on Alyrra for the entire duration of the story. She turns out to be a pretty reliable narrator, with a clear and detached prose style which catches the attention and makes it easy to accept even the most preposterous fantasy elements. Alyrra dislikes royal life, and her cynicism about rulers and servants is mostly justified. However, when she is out of the stifling world of the royal court, she finds herself forming friendships with her fellow workers, who have all adopted plant-themed names (They give Alyrra the name Thorn). These characters never really transcend their supporting role, but they are likeable enough and provide some good advice. Fighting for her workmates gives Alyrra the strength to embrace her status as a future ruler. The focus on Alyrra’s POV mostly benefits the story, as it provides focus and a valuable insight into her thoughts, feelings and insecurities. It also allows many of the key scenes, such as the pivotal trial scene, to have all the tension and drama they need. However, it also creates some limits – the attempts at drawing parallels between Alyrra’s growing concern for the people of Menaiya and Valka’s more superficial approach are hindered by the fact we do not get to see enough of Valka’s failings as a princess. Despite this, the first-person narrative allows the story to move quickly and prevents the gaps in the story from dragging it down. A story like Thorn can only be as engaging as its main character, and Alyrra is interesting enough for us to care about her development.

After Alyrra, the most interesting character in Thorn is the male protagonist, Prince Kestrin. The Beast to Alyrra’s Beauty, Kestrin appears violent and threatening, but reveals himself to be an astute and intelligent ruler with a softer and more compassionate side. The initial meetings between Kestrin and Alyrra crackle with tension as Kestrin is quick to spot the holes in Alyrra’s attempts to hide the truth. A late twist reveals that Kestrin knew more about Alyrra than he initially let on, and this adds further complexity to their dynamic, as we get a sense that Kestrin cares more deeply about her than we anticipated. As the two get to know each other, the relationship develops organically, with a genuinely sweet concluding scene in a specially created forest cementing the fact that the two could have a meaningful future together despite the less-than-ideal start to their relationship. The other standout character in Thorn is Falada the talking horse, the most memorable character from the original Brothers Grimm story. He retains his original name despite the setting change but gets a far stronger personality. His wise, sardonic outlook on life contrasts with Alyrra’s perspective, and the two have pretty strong chemistry. Falada calls out Alyrra’s primary flaw – her passive, conflict-averse approach - and plays a key role in encouraging her to try and regain her crown. When Khanani decides to stick to the source material and has Falada slain just before the halfway point, it creates a bit of a hole in the story. In The Goose Girl, Falada’s severed head is able to hold conversations with the heroine from “beyond the grave”, but Thorn handles this concept with surprising restraint. This may be because Alyrra has other people to communicate with now, but it still shows Khanari’s ability at keeping Thorn grounded despite all the strange fantasy elements in the narrative.

Aside from these three characters, the supporting cast is less impressive, except for the fearsome Lady. The Lady is the primary antagonist, with her desire to capture Kestrin and turn him into stone driving the overarching conflicts of the story. She is relatively underused, only really showing up at the beginning and end, but she is the best of the antagonists. When she arrives in the climax, we find out exactly why she wants to eliminate Kestrin’s bloodline, proving that she is more than just a creepy monster. When the motive is revealed, it humanizes the Lady without toning down the extent of her villainy – it’s impossible not to feel sorry for the Lady over the traumatic things she saw as a child, but her way of dealing with them pushes her towards doing even greater damage. Unfortunately, the other villainous characters are flat and unlikeable, even coming across quite repellent. The sheer unpleasantness of Alyrra’s mother and brother ensures that the opening chapters in are probably the weakest of the story. They leave the story after Alyrra heads to Menaiya, but their destructive legacy casts a long shadow for her throughout the narrative. Corbe, Alyrra’s fellow goose herder is simply a bitter, predatory jerk, with an attempt to explain the reasons for his resentment falling flat. In the original The Goose Girl, he was named Conrad, and most adaptations depict him as being motivated by curiosity and confusion rather than malice. That would have been a far more interesting approach, especially with the Lady and Valka causing so much trouble already.

Out of all the characters in Thorn, Valka is the one who is portrayed the worst, and this is probably the most frustrating thing about Thorn. There are a lot of directions Khanani could have taken with the treacherous maidservant, but she chooses to depict Valka as a straightforward villain – cruel and self-centered. Khanani tries to respond to the classist undertones of The Goose Girl by emphasizing Valka’s contempt for maidservants (Valka’s hatred for Alyrra is based on the fact she thwarted her attempts to frame another servant for theft) but seeing Valka abuse her power over Alyrra without growing or developing in any way still leaves an uncomfortable taste in the mouth. Although Khanari has claimed that she drew the line at the bloody comeuppance of the source material, Valka’s final fate is nastier than the ones villainous maidservants get in most The Goose Girl adaptations. The concluding message of Thorn seems to be that “Killing wrongdoers is OK if you do so mercifully”, which feels a bit uncomfortable for those with a more liberal perspective. However, a lot of fairy tales are unconditionally pro-capital punishment, and many more modern YA leads have few problems with killing irredeemable baddies, so it is pretty progressive to see Thorn examine the psychological ramifications of executing your enemies. The refusal to sanitize things is a huge positive and confirms Intisar Khanani’s ability at taking risks which a more conventional fairy tale adaptation would avoid.

Conclusion

Overall, Thorn really deserves its status as a new hit for Hot Key Books. Adapting an obscure fairy tale with an interesting premise proves to be a smart idea, with Khanani retaining the best bits of the source material whilst adding depth and complexity. The story starts slowly but improves as we lose ourselves in the world of Menaiya. Thorn has a lot of interesting things to say about justice, responsibility, and the mistreatment of women in society, with an appealing protagonist who gains the courage to change her world for the better. Although some aspects are underdeveloped and the supporting cast can feel flat, Khanani sticks strongly to her vision and deserves applause for putting a unique spin on the story. The setting really comes to life, and the themes are admirably ambitious and provocative. With Thorn, Intisar Khanani proves she is a talent to look out for. Next year she will publish A Theft of Sunlight, another story set in the world of Menaiya. A companion piece rather than a straightforward sequel, it will expand on the underdeveloped parts of the mythos (the Council of Mages, the Snatchers) whilst allowing some interesting new characters to take the spotlight.