About a month ago, Susie and I did a book exchange of some of our favorite books from our middle school and up years. I, of course, supplied her with Robin McKinley. She loaned me the first two books in this series and 2 others.

While it’s definitely a YA/middle grades book, I enjoyed it a lot. I started the first book last night and by 12:15 AM I had completed the second book in the series, In the Hands of the Goddess. I am such a completionist that I went to Barnes and Noble today and bought all four books so that I could own them and read them again.

Anyway, the book. Alanna: The First Adventure starts out with a little girl (Alanna) and her twin brother, Thom. Alanna loves fighting and outdoors and dreams of being a maiden knight, while Thom loves magic and wants to be the land’s most powerful sorceror. Their scholar father plans to send Alanna to a convent to learn to be a lady, and Thom to become a knight. Instead, they switch. With some clever forgery, Thom goes off to the convent to learn magic (they take boys and teach them magic; Thom does not do any daring bits of crossdressing) while Alanna goes off to become “Alan,” the page-in-training. Alanna immediately gets bullied because she’s so small, and when she stands up for herself, gains the attention of the Prince and his friends. They adopt her into their little posse and we see her work her tail off for 7 years, becoming the best at just about everything and all along hiding the fact that she’s a girl.

Although written for a younger audience than myself, I loved Alanna’s character. She’s fiesty, and best of all, she is BLUNT. Sometimes she would have lines that would just make me crack up. She says what’s in her head when confronted and people respect her for it. I love that kind of character.

3. 5 stars for an awesome piece of YA!
Cross posted to my book blog: http://starlightbookreviews.wordpress...