Rae Carson

The conclusion to Rae Carson’s young adult trilogy set during the Californian gold-rush. Leah Westfall and her friends arrive in San Francisco in 1850, hopeful that their various goals will be straightforward to achieve. Instead they discover complications and obstacles -- and a city in which laws can be circumnavigated if those who have the right combination of money and connections. I like how this builds on the previous books: Walk on Earth a Stranger was about the journey to show more California, Like a River Glorious was about life on the goldfields. Leah’s magical ability with gold also has an even more prominent role in the story, as she continues to explore, and make use of, her unusual talent.

Leah’s voice is engaging, her story is tense and eventful, the writing is vivid and lovely, and the historical details are fascinating. Carson continues to thoughtfully highlight abuses of power and raise questions about land ownership, privilege and injustice. It would be easy to have a story in which Leah, with her supernatural ability to acquire wealth, gets to sweep in and buy her friends free from trouble. But instead she is confronted with the fact that the solutions her money can buy have limitations. To be effective, to attempt to change the system and not just rescue one person, requires teamwork.

I was expecting a slightly more explosive ending. However, I like that Leah’s journey -- in spite of its hardships and difficult lessons -- ends so positively. She has friends she can trust, friends who love her and who know her secrets, and that is wonderful.

Gold has been singing a muted song for our entire journey here, sometimes from far away, sometimes buzzing in my throat. But this, when my feet touch ground here.. this is like hearing a chorus of a thousand voices. show less

An excellent continuation of Leah Westfall's story, with more edge of the seat adventures and challenges to finding her way free of her terrible Uncle Hiram. I appreciate that the book stays true to the bleak reality for women in 1800s America (they are effectively property) and that it highlights other appalling treatment of anyone else not in the straight white male power structure. The characters remain interesting and appealing, and I'm intrigued by Jeff's development in particular. Fans show more of the first book will, I think, be delighted. I certainly was.

Advanced Reader's Copy provided by Edelweiss. show less

I did not like the direction Rae Carson took her first series in. The first book was strong, the second a little wobbly, and the third was meandering and had lost all the impact of the first. I was reluctant to pick up a new series by her, and even though Walk on Earth a Stranger sounded appealing in the very early promo days, I promised myself not to get disappointed by her series again.

I forgot about that promise and the appeal of a survival journey got to me. I grew up on The Oregon Trail show more games and Little House and everything, and can rarely resist a novel about a treacherous journey, whether by sea or land or rail. Happily, Walk on Earth a Stranger was very satisfying in that aspect, with near-death experiences (and actual death to certain villains), and a touch of suspense from the magical gold-sense in the main character.

Unhappily, while it is obvious that Carson attempted to learn from and remedy some of the criticisms of her first series, she is still a bit uneven here and could use more work when it comes to writing about marginalized people. The narrative takes pains to show that while our narrator Leah is a second-class citizen in 1849 (she's a woman, she has to hide her magical ability), she is also highly privileged, especially when she is passing as a boy. In particular, she is confronted with her own racism, even though she is a good person who doesn't believe she is racist.

I found, as a white woman myself, that this plot theme of privilege was depicted well. Leah has a lot of unconscious prejudices, and while they are not all called out, the narrative does suggest that they are wrong. Everywhere in the background are examples of racism or other bigotries, and it's always shown to be appalling or otherwise wrong. However, it is heavily White Savior leaning and many bigoted, racist actions or statements aren't explicitly called out as wrong. They are often committed by villainous characters, so I assumed that they were intended to be depicted as villainous actions or statements, but the narrative never explicitly says so. When it comes to the racism against Native Americans, it is especially bad, in part because Leah's best friend is Cherokee but expresses internalized racism at several points. I read these things as Carson trying to represent a wide spectrum of prejudice and privilege, and to say "this is how it is", but I was vaguely uncomfortable with the unevenness of the pushing back (if any racism is explicitly called out, it's only against black characters or immigrants) and had a lot of caveats about my enthusiasm for the book. I really like what she's trying to do, but the subtlety is going to pass over a lot of people, and besides, a lot of Native Americans have said that the depictions here are harmful to them, so I have to trust that I am too white to really understand.

Some of the unevenness is also in what may or may not be a romance plot thread. I was initially pleased that Leah and her best friend are given a lot of screentime as friends and she is very clear that she has no romantic interest in him. There is, then, no romance plot. But as the pagecount increases, there are more and more hints that maybe there is a romance. I was disappointed by this, because it felt inauthentic to the character and too forced - like it's necessary for a YA fantasy novel. I liked that much of Leah's journey is also about her grief for her parents, and that she is trying to also understand and reevaluate her best friend relationship in the face of that grief and her orphan status, but the narrative is never clear (much like the privilege themes) if that is what is happening, or if it's legitimately supposed to be a slow build to a romantic relationship.

Overall, I enjoyed the reading of this book a lot. It was engrossing and had me turning the pages quickly to find out what happened. I appreciated the subtle work Carson did to make the characters sympathetic and imperfect, all mixed up like real people. But I'm not sure I can recommend it as enthusiastically as I did when I had just turned the last page, and I'm wary of what will happen in the sequel, when the party gets to San Francisco (by the way, I failed to mention the gay-coded characters traveling out there, in 1849, and that's more unevenness - from a distance, it's a broad strokes stereotype, like so many characters and elements in the story, but the characters themselves were interesting and appealing). show less

This book was a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did. After the ending of The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Elisa is a Queen trying to rule. But she is only seventeen and her age and her place of birth undermine her authority. The Lords of her Quorum try to outmaneuver her at every step, trying to prove her incompetence, coaxing her to consider appointing a regent or marry for an alliance. On the other side, there are multiple assassination attempts on her in her own show more capital, and the question remains if the enemies are outside or within. Amidst all this, there is also the pull towards fulfilling her destiny as God’s Chosen One. Will she be the Queen she wants to be? Will she survive? Who should she trust?

The character development of Elisa is amazing in this book. Most of the first half, lots of things are happening around her and she is young and vulnerable and not in control. The intrigue and betrayals and politics of the court stifle her confidence but she starts asserting herself once she is out of the capital. She makes plans, decides what she wants to do, proving to herself that she can be the Queen she is meant to be. Her growth is remarkable and the ending was awesome.

Hector – I didn’t see this coming. He was Elisa’s good friend in the first book but it grows into so much more. They trust each other, want to keep each other safe and respect each other immensely. I can’t speak much more without spoilers but their romance and their conversations are just intense, angsty and so full of love, it’s adorable.

I also loved Mara’s character. She and Elisa develop a great friendship and I want to appreciate how both of them discuss their personal lives and are so confident about their bodies and sexuality. I really really adore female friendships and this bond is special. Storm was a surprise. I was skeptical about him for the most part but I might just have started to like him towards the end. I hated Ximena in this book. I couldn’t believe that she refused to see Elisa as anything other than the God’s vessel here to fulfill her destiny. She really got what was coming to her.

The ending is both terrifying and exhilarating at once and I am very excited to see Elisa kick some ass in the next book and finally achieve what she deserves. show less