Wren's War

Princess Teressa has been trying for years to make up for spending her childhood undercover in an orphanage. She works unceasingly to be a good princess, despite repeated kidnap attempts and sneering relations. But then King Andreus's soldiers attack, killing her parents and leaving her on the run. Teressa has to reclaim her kingdom from Andreus, while proving to her power-hungry relatives that she can rule. It's a tall order, but Teressa is smart and self-possessed, and she has a great group of friends. While she fights on the battlefield and for social rank, Tyron, Prince Connor and Wren quest to find a spell to defeat King Andreus.

Teressa is a great character, and this book contains her ruminations and realizations in regards to show more physical strength, physical discomforts, and being royalty. Hereditary rule of a feudal society is a hard thing to reconcile with a thoughtful and ethical mind, and Teressa struggles with her newfound leadership. Meanwhile, she also wrestles with her newfound attraction to Prince Connor. He is her mother's younger half-brother, making him her UNCLE. I just couldn't bring myself to root for a romance between a man and his niece, so that whole subplot fell flat for me.

These books are a lot of fun, mostly due to their well-developed characters and interesting world-building. The plots themselves are a little simplistic, particularly in regards to how the main villain is dealt with. Time and time again, he slips away. And even after he kills multiple friends and relatives of the main characters, their idea of attacking him is to tie knots in his clothes. (I am not joking. Wren sneaks into his castle to get a magic book and, finding his rooms unguarded, decides the best idea is to short-sheet his bed and tangle up his clothes. Wren is a teenager at this point, so she reads as distrubingly short-sighted and immature instead of wacky and light-hearted.) But this is partly what I like about the books so much--as in the Avatar: The Last Airbender series, the characters are troubled by the prospect of killing. They seek ways around it, through compromise, weather magic, and illusory defenses. I'm glad they don't immediately resort to murder to solve their problems, but I don't think Smith has yet figured out a reasonable and responsible way to deal with villains like Andreus. show less

On the one hand, the action is pretty abrupt -- big things happen, there's no warning, often the big things remain mysterious with regards to motivation.

On the other hand, this series gives me all the satisfying feels of a Tamora Pierce novel. There are a quartet of young people with different strengths and passions. They are in the process of discovering what those strengths and passions and magical abilities are in a high stakes situation, and they come up with creative solutions. They also have to address a certain amount of personal growth and their own changing relationships. I love that. It really works for me as a reader.

I probably would have appreciated this book if I'd read it when I was 12 and reading the first of the trilogy over and over again. As it was, I forced myself to finish this one because I needed some closure. This is a book about a war which yet lacks any real stakes. And it became increasingly clear that she was too invested in her beloved characters to have them make mistakes or give them any true character flaws. As a result, despite the body count, I found myself bored and not invested in the characters or the narrative.

One final note: Tess ended up being a far more interesting character than Wren, Connor and Tyron put together. She was the only one of the three who also has the potential to make bad decisions and even to turn to the show more darkside in the name of protecting her kingdom. I would have liked to spend a lot more time with her. show less

Another good addition to the Wren series. I quite enjoyed it. I did have a bit of trouble with Connor in this one. He seemed 'sulkier' than the previous two books. With reason, I suppose, but since a year or so had gone by since book two, one hardly expected to see him still sighing over the same issues he was in book two. Although, since when is life speedy?All in all a very good read, and I look forward to getting my grabbers on book 4 :)

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