Holy Crap!

Mark Lawrence has outdone himself. And yes, he can write women. Peeps is peeps and I guess he knows that. FYI, the book was too good for me to be any more articulate. ( )

A thoroughly excellent fantasy novel that reminded me of other magical school-setting stories such as "The Name of the Wind" and "The Poppy War". I'm totally enamored with the main characters, a group of young girls who are learning at a convent run by badass mystic nuns. I loved seeing their relationships form and grow with one another; Lawrence is also getting extra points by me because of the beautiful ways he wrote these girls - they're so well fleshed out and flawed and just plain amazing. The handful of scenes that flashed forward to the future (I think?) were slightly confusing but took nothing away from the book. I'm reallyyyy looking forwards to reading the rest of the trilogy! ( )

*4.5 ( )

Love it! Original world, interesting protagonist, and I mostly like the pacing. Fighting nuns, great idea! And well executed. ( )

Red Sister is one of my new favorite books. I mean the premise sounded good enough that I couldn’t wait to try it out, but then it got even better from there. The writing style is wonderful, the words very artfully chosen. Nona Grey is such a complex and intriguing character. For a lot of the book we don’t know all the details of Nona’s elusive past, though we know she wants to keep it unknown and in the dark where it belongs. How dark is her past? What exactly is it that has placed her in such a position as to need to be saved from the noose at the beginning of the book? Learning this past is very slow and very unreliable. We never know when Nona is really telling the truth, only parts, or making stuff up altogether. After all, one of the big lessons Nona learns while at the convent is that truth is a weapon. And what people choose to believe, what becomes their own truth, can change everything.

Nona gets saved from being hanged by the Abbess Glass of the Convent of Sweet Mercy and taken back to the convent to attend their school. She soon learns that the convent is not just a place for sisters to follow a righteous path of religion, but also to train assassins, called Red Sisters. The school draws upon the ancestral traits that show in each student (from four original tribes) to guide them towards different paths such as being mages, assassins, or religious Path followers. While Nona attends the school, she begins to find the thing most important to her— friendship and a feeling of belonging, both of which are constantly under threat by her past and by those seeking revenge from within it.

The unreliability of Nona’s narrative was one of the most intriguing parts of the book to me. Outside of that though, the plot line itself and the world it takes place in is very interesting. I am curious to learn more about the moon, ship hearts, and the like. The time period seems very medieval mixed in with a lot of mysticism. The author also does a wonderful job at developing all the other characters of the book. There are so many side characters and yet none seem like just fillers, instead each has their own unique story and connection with Nona that I found myself eager to learn more about. I feel like while there was a lot learned in this book, it set even more up to be discovered and I have so many questions I hope get addressed in the next book. I am so excited to continue with this story! ( )