Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn
SPOILERS FOR DAYZ
* spoiler alert **It is hard for me judge this book because it is suppose to annoy you a little, haha! Though it annoys me to no end, I found it compelling and necessary to watch Coriel’s perception of reality change as she become older. Her fan-girling and obliviousness to the faults of the aliora’s slavery makes me want to slap her but it is very realistic. A girl like Coriel, innocent and impressionable will not understand why the prince is a pyscho and her favorite slave wants to be free because the world she lives in has normalized it.
The first part of the book is through the eyes of preteen Coriel. She has an obsessive crush on Prince Bryan, applauds that her Uncle Jaxon hunts and enslaves people for a living, and is COMPLETELY oblivious to the guy who really likes her until the last chapter of the entire book (The guy pretty much did everything but wait outside her window with a boombox).While reading it, I struggled with deciding whether or not to find a way to return the book but after reading reviews that it would get better and more mature, I gritted my teeth and read on through the Beiber-fan-girling.
Overall, its a good book–it could have been less obvious with certain things and if it were more mature, could have been a spectacular novel. I wish we could have learned more about the Aliora and their Queen Rowena but I guess that is the point to leave some ambiguity.
Mecca-Amirah Jackson 