Review for "Huntress" by Malinda Lo

Page Count: 371 Pages

Publish Date: April 5, 2011

Genre: YA/Fantasy/LGBT

Synopsis: Nature is out of balance in the human world. The sun hasn't shone in years, and crops are failing. Worse yet, strange and hostile creatures have begun to appear. The people's survival hangs in the balance.

To solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth without a speck of the otherworldly. And yet the two girls' destinies are drawn together during the mission. As members of their party succumb to unearthly attacks and fairy tricks, the two come to rely on each other and even begin to fall in love. But the Kingdom needs only one huntress to save it, and what it takes could tear Kaede and Taisin apart forever.

Review: I wanted to love this book because there aren't enough YA books about lesbians and of the few that there are too many of them deal with large amounts of coming out angst. I had such high hopes for this book and it started out really strong, but the plotter seemed forced at the end and, sadly, so did the romance between Kaede and Taisin.

However, there is quite a bit of chemistry (you can totally have chemistry without good romance) between Kaede and Taisin.



I loved the characters as they seemed quite real.

The book is also a little disproportionate. The set up to the quest is long whereas the true quest is not as long as it should be. The conclusion is a bit of a let down mostly because I was hoping that things would turn out differently for Kaede and Taisin.



Huntress is definitely worth the read especially if you're a queer girl of any kind. It's nice to see representation without the coming out angst. And even if you aren't a queer girl, this is a story about kick ass girls and it's worth reading.

Rating: 3.5 STARS