Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce Review

I am going to start off with the warning that Tamora Pierce is the writer I wish I could be which means this will not be an unbiased review. Because she is perfect and everything that comes from her is perfect.

That being said, some works of hers are more perfect than others. Like this one and I will proceed to tell you why in such a manner that I expect you to have purchased the book by the end of it so I'll just leave an amazon link here: https://amzn.to/2wD9hFq

Arram is the young and awkwardly brilliant main character of the book. He has stumbled his way into a series of incidents at his mage school that indicate powers that he is not completely comfortable with having and is consequently thrown in with two other prematurely successful students, Ozorne and Varice. My sister once described this book to me as Harry Potter if Malfoy had successfully befriended Harry. While amusing, this book is really so much more.

I have never read a book where I have gotten to know the main character better. Arram is so well voiced that I could not imagine that he wasn't real.

It has a gentle intensity about it as there are larger implications to those he naively observes balancing politics and justice in a tempestuous social climate. The masterful language is able to capture this young voice in such a way that is endearing rather than annoying. I even found myself dreading his coming of age and the maturing of the tone that would come with it. As the reader you understand that there are individuals that, while harmless now, have the makings for something threatening in the future and what scares him in the moment might eb good for him. It felt like reading a younger sibling's diary at times.

While sweet, there is an intensity about the book that keeps it gripping as he navigates meeting royalty and finding dead bodies.

In short, I love this book and highly recommend it.