Interested in a detailed summary with read-alikes?? Check out my Annotation of this book.
This review is based on an advanced review copy (ARC) received through Reedsy Discovery. Plot Summary and Personal Thoughts below have also been published on that site.
Author: LeQuita Harrison
Category/Type: Young Adult fiction
Genre: Fantasy
Publication Date: August 1, 2023
Number of Pages: 351 pages of story text; includes Author’s Note.
Geographical Setting: A fantasy world, primarily the kingdom of Ardania.
Time Period: Present day, although flashbacks and history play an important role.
Series (if applicable): This is book 1 in The Fairest series.
Plot Summary: The stakes are high in The Fairest, an adventure fantasy with intentional world building and relatable characters.
It’s slavery or death for anyone with an imperfection in Ardania. The stakes are high for purple eyed Mageia as she struggles to do what is right in a kingdom willing to sacrifice anyone with a fault.
Mageia Unknown steals for what she and her family need to survive. The perfect Fair, who rule the kingdom, nearly sacrificed her as a child to the Diivine gods known because of her purple eyes. Since escaping that fate, she’s carved out a life with a found family of other rescued Strange. When the kingdom decides to sacrifice children on a holiday, Mageia knows she must intervene, even though it puts her own life at risk. Things don’t go according to plan and Mageia will be forced to face her past and forge precarious allegiances if she wants to survive and discover who, and what, she really is. What will happen when the truth threatens to topple her understanding of the world and everyone in it?
If you like your fantasy to keep you on the edge of your seat with protagonists who aren’t exactly heroes but enjoyable all the same, this is for you. Fans of heroines faced with impossible choices while struggling to accept their power, like Shadow and Bone or Children of Blood and Bone, will connect with the Fairest trilogy.
Content warnings (may containt SLIGHT SPOILERS): Slavery, violence, ableism, human sacrifice, including of children.
Representation:
Disabled characters and characters of color are the protagonists in this book.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
WARNING: May contain spoilers
The Fairest is an adventure fantasy with slow, intentional world building. The first in a trilogy, Harrison takes time to lay out details and characters. Readers will learn about the struggles between the perfect Fair, the imperfect Strange, and also that fairies exist in the first chapter, but it will be another 50 pages before the existence of another land of magical creatures is mentioned. Readers who take the leap into the unfamiliar will be rewarded with a well-developed cast of characters. You can’t help but fall for Mageia’s strength and ferocity, Dean’s tenderness, or Gris’s hopeful faith, and even Commander Shader is intriguing in his wickedness.
There are what appear to be grammatical errors scattered through the start of the text. The wrong tense or an adjective that doesn’t quite fit might be used; I urge readers to push through this. None of the errors detract from the story and the purpose will become clear when you meet a specific character. It’s a clever way to challenge notions of ability and disability.
Final resting place: My ARC was digital so this resides in my Notability app library.
WHAT I’M READING NOW
My annotations and reviews are always running a bit (or more than a bit) behind what I’m actually reading so here’s a little bit of a teaser, if you will, for reviews to come.
A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab (re-read)