Ananna of the Tanarau abandons ship when her parents try to marry her off to an allying pirate clan: she wants to captain her own boat, not serve as second-in-command to her handsome yet clueless fiance. But her escape has dire consequences when she learns the scorned clan has sent an assassin after her.
And when the assassin, Naji, finally catches up with her, things get even worse. Ananna inadvertently triggers a nasty curse — with a life-altering result. Now Ananna and Naji are forced to become uneasy allies as they work together to break the curse and return their lives back to normal. Or at least as normal as the lives of a pirate and an assassin can be.
So female assassins seem to be ruling the YA market but after this book it seems that they might have some competition with the pirates, female pirates are apparently pretty kick-ass too, if Ananna of Tanarau is anything to go by. Yes, Ananna now joins the pretty line of female characters that I have labelled imperfect, kick-ass, stubborn and delinquent with a secret heart of gold, she is alongside characters like Celaena (Throne of Glass), Katsa (Graceling) and Yelena (Study Series). If you hadn't already guessed, I love Ananna, she was stubborn and bratty and yet I loved it, I loved how she isn't the cookie-cutter good girl I hate to read! My only problem with Ananna is that I kept reading her name as banana... yeah.
I also LOVED Naji, despite the fact that he started out as aloof and cold I also really liked to watch him warm to and begin to genuinely care for Ananna. There is a slight hinto of romance in this book but their relationship only develops to a bond of friendship in this book and for that I'm happy. I loved the hints of a developing fondness but the pace it developed was just perfect.
Listen, I'm not saying that this book is without it's faults. This book tends to cross into 'corny' at times (I think the last line of this book seriously made me cringe), the ending is open ended and doesn't even end on a cliffhanger, it just... ends which may annoy some people (there is a sequel). Some things weren't explained, like the mists. However whilst I recognise these things as faults, none of them really bothered me.
This book was just too epic for me to care.
Cassandra Rose Clarke has written a fantastic debut. The writing was amazing, the pacing was fantastic and the plot wa sunpredictable. The characters were just awesome and this book was just epic. Clarke has exceeded my expectations with this amazing debut.
Overall Rating: A
Book released October 4th 2012 by Strange Chemistry
Book received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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