The Girl of Fire and Thorns

Now this is good YA fantasy. Rae Carson's The Girl of Fire and Thorns is an exciting and rewarding read. Start with a heroine, a shy, overweight princess who's also a chosen one and who is being married to a king she's never met. Throw in a surprising knowledge of tactics and the suggestion of hidden depths. Then add palace intrigue, prophecies, and magic, all in a setting based more on Spain than England, unlike a lot of fantasy novels. Basically, there's a lot going on here, and it's all well done. Elisa is a heroine you quickly come to root for. She grows, she learns about herself, and her weight doesn't end up defining her, while there's no magical beautification either. I started reading this with a bit of skepticism that it might be just another YA fantasy novel, but I quickly came to the point where I couldn't put it down. For everyone who wants a book that's not afraid to be different, check this out. Oh, and, yes, there is romance, but that's just another aspect that Carson handles deftly and realistically.