Circle of Magic: Briar's Book by Tamora Pierce

[meganbmoore]

The final book of the quartet is, as I was told, more about the title character and less of an ensemble than the other books were. This actually makes good narrative sense, as separating Briar from the girls serves to emphasize the bond between the four, but it was a bit jarring after the first three books. I do really like Briar, though, and even though it’s very much a cliché, I tend to like the trope of the street rat being told to pick a birthday by his new friends. The plague aspect was interesting, and I liked that we also got to see more of the teachers, and learn about their pasts.

The quartet didn’t quite live up to how much Pierce has been built up to me, but I’m also told it isn’t one of her best. I liked the friendship aspect, and the magic bond between the four and how it was explored, as well as the different types of magic, and how they were directly tied to commonplace things. I have to ask, though: does Pierce always have a character like Tris, who she pushes really, really hard? Not so much Tris herself, but a character that’s pushed so hard. Because, while it’s probably a bit hypocritical of me, I probably would have liked Tris a lot more if I wasn’t expected to like her so much.

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

It's hard to say, because, as sub_divided says, her other series (the Tortall books, which is where I first encountered Pierce when I was ) are single-protagonist, not ensemble. The main character in those is 'pushed' in the sense that they're very character-centric, and if you don't like the main character in a particular quartet there's probably not much point reading that quartet. The other characters can be important, and are developed to greater or lesser degrees, but the central character is most definitely central.

I always feel it necessary to warn people about the Alanna books (the Song of the Lioness quartet), because Alanna comes off as a Mary Sue. (No, I lie; she doesn't just come off as one, she is one. I just like her anyway.) She's got the special magic and the special pet and the attention of all the other characters and so on and so forth right down to the red hair and purple eyes. I read the Song of the Lioness books when I was ten or eleven and ate it up, and I still like them quite a lot, but I'm sure a big wodge of that is nostalgia value. I tend to recommend the Immortals quartet (Daine, the protagonist of those, is still Special, but less overwhelmingly so), or the Protector of the Small books (Keladry's story follows in the tracks of Alanna's, but with a very much normal protagonist, which is an interesting contrast). But it's hard for me to know what to recommend, because as I said, these were the books I read when I was thirteen, and I have no idea how good or bad they are apart from that.

(I should probably note that even her Mary Sue-ish characters do have flaws, often big honking ones that get them in trouble, so it's not that they're just Perfect. But it's a bit hard to take the purple eyes seriously nowdays.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I'm fine with main characters being pushed, it's just that when a character is pushed and they overshadow other characters, when they really shouldn't, it tends to grate.

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

:)

I picked up the Alanna series on Saturday when I was feeling sad and haven't read it in years. I so agree with everything you've said, and it's clear you love the series too.

I've always had a small problem with the way Alanna (and especially Jon) are portrayed out of Alanna's viewpoint. Alanna... didn't seem like Alanna, to either Daine or Keladry. I guess she has a temper, but having it constantly told to Daine/Keladry about her infamous temper and avoiding her, I felt I wasn't reading about Alanna.

Each time I read these series, I have to make sure I'm home alone. I find myself crying over my favorite scenes and talking back to the books and grinning insanely. I find that tends to disturb the strangers around me, heh.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I always feel it necessary to warn people about the Alanna books (the Song of the Lioness quartet), because Alanna comes off as a Mary Sue. (No, I lie; she doesn't just come off as one, she is one. I just like her anyway.) She's got the special magic and the special pet and the attention of all the other characters and so on and so forth right down to the red hair and purple eyes.

It's not just you; that sounds remarkably like a conversation I had with a friend (who also ate those books up like candy as a child) about beloved Canon Sues in YA literature. I've never read Pierce -- I don't remember seeing them on the YA library shelves when I was young, and really by the time the first ones came out I'd mostly started focusing on the adult shelves at the library anyway. I've been a bit leery of picking them up now, despite how much they seem to be great favorites of younger friends; from the sound of the series I suspect that I too would have adored them to bits at age ten or so, but I fear that the Special Sueness of it all might be a bit too much for my jaded adult sensibilities...