Yes, Aly's over-talented and kind of annoying. Yes, the book has a serious case of "A white person tried their best while writing this." But just when I thought all of the messiness had killed my nostalgia, it snuck up behind me about 2/3 of the way in and hit me with a brick.
Trickster's Choice shows us a rich new part of the Tortallan Universe that both introduces a unique new setting full of interesting characters and creatures and offers new insight into what we learned about the world in earlier series. Pierce, who has earned a lot of credit for dealing explicitly with women's issues like sexism, rape, and birth control, is certainly less informed on the subject of race, but I appreciate that she writes about racism and colonialism with the same level of honesty and passion that she does with subjects more in her comfort zone. Over the course of the book, Aly gets to know and care about a wide variety of interesting characters in the oppressed ethnic group (the dark-skinned raka) and understand the politics of the ruling class (the white luarin), and the racial dynamics are shown to be as messy and fraught as they are in real life. It's not a simple situation of two ethnic groups at war with one another, because these two groups have been interacting with one another for centuries. So there are mixed characters; there are raka nobles and luarin slaves; there are foreigners and gods and crows, all with their own motivations and perspectives. Attention is drawn to the intersections between race, gender, and class. The main character says a lot of things about racial dynamics that I don't really agree with (for instance, that the luarin enriched the isles through their rule), but the fact that there's so much room to argue about various interpretations of the setting's politics and history, and that there are so many parallels to real world discussion of racism and colonialism, is a testament to how fully realized the setting is.
But is it a good book? I didn't enjoy the first half very much at all, primarily because Aly is so much of a white saviour. However, that made me enjoy the second half a whole lot more, because the book is such an interesting deconstruction of the white saviour trope. I also enjoyed the second half a lot more because I got invested in the setting's characters and politics... much like Aly, actually! I'm looking forward to rereading the second book.
While Trickster's Choice is perfectly passable if you treat it as a fun YA adventure and no more than that, I believe that the most interesting way to read it is as a response to and investigation of the white saviour trope, particular as it appears in novels like Trickster's Choice--those occupied with the adventures of young, noble, European-coded heroines in foreign lands. Comparable texts include Pierce's own Song of the Lioness (particularly the third book) and Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword. You might not want to read this book to learn about colonialism--it's probably better to seek out texts by victims and scholars of colonialism and racism for that. But once you have some knowledge of the subject, it's absolutely a worthwhile read. ( )

Love the audio book version of it – well read, great story, excellent punky characters! Alianne has such mischievous competence. She takes her capture in stride and turns the situation into one that interests her. I think I’ve listened to this twice now, and I’m still totally enthralled. ( )

I really liked Pierce's Circle of Magic books (I've read the whole series twice), but this series (with Trickster's Queen) was awful. The main character is a Mary Sue, smarter and more capable than everyone else, even the adults. It is so over the top that it completely broke the spell for me. It is just unrealistic for a young teenager to be in charge of the [spoiler deleted] displacing someone with decades of experience. Whenever the plot gets stuck, the trickster god shows up to change it. Or should I say, the lazy author fixes it. The whole book has a slapdash feel to it. Why do we get a page of description of the port city as we leave it, and when we won't see it again until the next book? What a mess. ( )

Everyone I talked to told me this was a good book. However, I was never motivated to keep reading this book. I just put it up. ( )

Tamora Pierce is one of my all time favorite authors who could only improve upon her writing skills by turning out her books a bit faster. This book like most of her books has wonderful characterization and story line. The world she creates is intriguing and everyone in it seems real and fascinating. Alanna has always been my favorite character of Tamora Pierce's so I am thrilled that her daughter got her own books. ( )