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Loading... Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness, Book 1) (original 1983; edition 2005)by Tamora Pierce
Work InformationAlanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce (1983)
  
Best Fantasy Novels (75) Favorite Childhood Books (335) Best Young Adult (29) » 25 more Elevenses (87) Female Author (488) Books Read in 2024 (758) KayStJ's to-read list (111) Books Read in 2014 (1,254) Children's Fantasy (56) Female Protagonist (655) Formative books (6) Books tagged favorites (252) Books with Twins (114) al.vick-series (325) Favourite Books (1,653) Unshelved Book Clubs (104) No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) stardustwisdom | Dec 31, 2023 |  ) lmauro123 | Dec 28, 2023 | ) lmauro123 | Dec 28, 2023 | Alanna is one of those classic young adult novels that uses the language of children's literature to tell a somewhat more mature story. It's a fairly engaging school story that captures the emotional intensity of adolescence (I love how Alanna either LOVES or HATES everyone she meets). However, I didn't care for the prose (endless narrative passages! POV jumps galore!), the worldbuilding was uneven, and there were some pretty sentimental moments that didn't move me as a grown-up reader. Yet Pierce does many things very, very well in telling the now cliched story of a cross-dressing young woman training to become a warrior. Alanna herself is a very honest depiction of a woman trying to succeed in a traditionally male role. No one knows Alanna is female, but Alanna knows and is possessed by a powerful, sometimes self-destructive need to prove herself. She is haunted by fear that she's not good enough and guilt that she's lying to her friends. At the end of the day, Pierce's message is not that women can do everything men can do. It's that women can do everything men can do, but the experience of being the exceptional woman will totally suck. As an aside, it occurred to me that the cross-dressing lady warrior trope fails to address the historical experiences of cross-dressing people who didn't identify with their birth gender. Alanna is told that it's important that she not lose touch with her female identity. This is somewhat fair if she's happy identifying as a woman, but super unhelpful otherwise. By assuming that people cross-dress in order to get access to male privilege, these narratives tend to push aside the reality of transgender people in the past. (  ) raschneid | Dec 19, 2023 | * This is the best story Tamora Pierce has written, by far. If you've read other Tamora Pierce books and didn't like them, I still recommend this one to you. * While it's sold as four separate books, and each book does manage to stand on its own, they're best read together as a single long story and all at once. * Simple, straightforward style of writing. * I just love it, ok? It's not always perfect but I even love the imperfections. (  ) caedocyon | May 9, 2023 | no reviews | add a review
Eleven-year-old Alanna, who aspires to be a knight even though she is a girl, disguises herself as a boy to become a royal page, a learning many hard lessons along her path to high adventure. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.15)
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