Alanna by Tamora Pierce

[meganbmoore]

Alanna of Trebond wants to be a knight. Her twin brother, Thom, wants to be a sorcerer. Their father doesn’t care what they want, or even realize that they want anything, and declares that Alanna shall be sent to a convent to train with priests, and Thom will train to be a knight. So Alanna comes up with a plan to dress like a boy, and change her father’s letter so that he has two sons, allowing the twins to follow their dreams.

The only Tamora Pierce books I’ve read before are the Circle of Magic quartet, which are set on a different world from this one. Alanna is Pierce’s first book (I believe this quartet was originally one long book that Pierce was told to break up, because no one in the target audience wanted to read a book that long) and it shows. Alanna follows all the normal for the “crossdressing girl who wants to be a knight” genre-actually, it probably helped solidify the tropes-right down to setting up what appears to be a future love triangle for Alana that includes Jon, the prince of Tortall (the world the book is set in) and George, a young thief who befriends Alanna.

If I’d first read this in my teens, I suspect I would have responded very strongly to it. As it is, I quite like Alanna as a character and enjoyed her supporting cast, but am less than amazed by the book itself.

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Pierce improved quite a bit just as a writer over the years. I read Alanna first in my teens, and loved it, but it's pretty easy to see that especially when compared to her later books.

Interestingly, one of her later quartets -- Protector of the Small -- is very interesting as a comparison to the Alanna books: it's set in the same world, and also features a young woman training to be a knight, but its protagonist, Kel, lacks some of Alanna's more, um, over-the-top features (red hair, purple eyes, powerful magic, crazy love triangle, etc. etc. etc). It's much better-written, and the character is more realistic and well-rounded, and as an adult I appreciate it more, but to be perfectly honest when I first read Alanna as a young teen I was so all over the red hair/purple eyes/over the top-ness, so.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Heh. I got to Alanna's coloring and went "Yes, yes, first book from twenty-odd years ago. We shall not speak of it again."

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:) I encountered the Alanna books in 8th or 9th grade, which was really the perfect time for them, and I adored them to pieces.

I've read other of her books, and bounced off a lot of them, but I like the Protector of the Small series better than Alanna now, for it actually confronting the question of what it's like for the second girl to go through knight training, and I adore the first Beka Cooper book, for having a no-nonsense kind of heroine.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think the Protector of the Small books were what first caught my attention. Because there's plenty of the FIRST girl to do something, but not a lot about the SECOND one who has to deal not only with people who aren't used to accepting her, but who also has to deal with the comparisons.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Exactly! When I dig them out of the various boxes they're in, I should re-read them. :D

[estara.livejournal.com]

By the way, the second Beka Cooper is out in hardcover ^^

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I just bought the audiobook, and am looking forward to doing art while listening to it. XD