The Girl of Ink & Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

 

Spoiler alert. Myth meets adventure meets fairy tale writing.

Ive honestly had my eye on this book for what feels like years. I heard about it first on booktube and fell in love with the fairytale like premise, the map making aspects and well the cover to be honest. Ive read two other books by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and i really enjoyed them both, although this one is by far my favourite. (btw the other books were The Deathless Girls and Deeplight). Last Christmas then, I finally decided to treat myself and picked it up in my local bookshop. And let me say, I didnt regret it. I devoured this in one sitting and, as I just didnt feel like I wanted to be done with this world quite yet, decided to read it again straight away. And that, for me, is really quite rare.

In this Story you follow Isabella, a cartographers daughter, who lives in a little town on an Island called Joya. One day, the villagers find one of Isabellas classmated murdered by someone unknown. But as the Governor doesnt do anything about it, his Daughter Lupa decides to proof herself and hunt the murder herself. Isabella herself then joins the search party for Lupa, disguised as her twin Brother to find her best friend again. Always in her mind there is a story. A story told to her many times by her Da about a girl, sacrificing herself to save Joya and a great fire demon trying to destroy them all. And as they find trees with leaves like ash, wolves as big as horses with red eyes and fire caves with molten lava hotter than the sun, Isabella realizes that sometimes, stories are true.

~Rating~

Characters                                9/10

Atmosphere                                9/10

Writing Style                             10/10 

Plot                                      9/10

Intruige                                  10/10

Logic                                      8/10

Enjoyment                                  9/10

Goodreads rating                           5/5★

Trigger warnings: loss of family members

I loved the mythical, magical aspects of this book a lot. The Writing Style is just amazing,a lot like a modern fairy tale. It was, for what it was quite realistic, in the sense that they werent many black and white characters, but instead a lot of morally grey ones which made it all a lot more interesting. I enjoyed Isabellas character developement throughout the story and how the events made not a heroine out of her, but an adventourer that was willing to dive head into danger to save not only her Da, but the whole of Joya. I wouldve enjoyed a little love story between Isabella and Pablo which was a bit hinted here and there, but maybe I just read way too much in it. I never wouldve thought that you could put this amount of intricacy and fantasy in a book this short. The atmosphere in this book was great, if so a bit dark from time to time and I really quite liked the ending. Without spoiling too much, it doesnt have the usual fairy tale happily ever after ending. Isabella just loves her stories with a sad ending too much.

As I already told you guys, Im currently halfway through reading this book for the second time and I am flying through this. Id recommend it for people who like fantasy, but have major big book fear and dont particularly enjoy reading series. This one is a one book story with only 222 pages giving you all you could ask for (except for a decent romance but well, except for that). Definitely tell me what you thought about this story after you read it, i love hearing from you!


thanks for reading guys!

xx Aria