Red in Tooth and Claw by Lish McBride

The quick cut: A girl pretending to be a boy finds herself shipped off to a home for social outcasts after her grandfather dies.

A real review:

Thank you to Penguin Group for providing the arc for an honest review.

It can be difficult to be taken seriously as a woman, but historically it has been much more complex. So what would you do if everything you had was at risk of being taken away due to your gender? This is a reality for Faolan.

Faolan finds herself suddenly homeless when her grandfather dies and the local mayor decides sixteen is too young to inherit his homestead. She is sent to a local home for outcasts, until the locals can find a way to take the land from her. Finding out that Faolan is a girl rather than a boy would only make that easier. Unfortunately, her biggest issue now is that there's something strange going on at the settlement. Can she figure out what's happening at her temporary home? Or will it be the latest disaster to happen to her?

Western isn't typically my preferred genre, but fantasy definitely is. So this combination intrigued me from the description and I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, I got to the end and felt like it only further solidified that their story type wasn't for me.

Faolan is an incredibly likeable character. The worst happens to her and she's an orphan with what little she has being circled by adults who want it. Seeing her journey from hiding who she is to proudly accepting it is a very worthy central character development.

While the main character is great, the rest didn't feel quite as enjoyable. The beginning of the book comes with plenty of story threads to pull on and many of them are completely ignored. It's frustrating getting to the end and having more questions than answers about what you just experienced.

A western fantasy story with lots of unanswered questions.

My rating: 3 out of 5