Yuffie's Book Reviews

The Assassin's Curse - by Cassandra Rose Clarke

--Published Book--

The Plot

The Assassin's Curse opens with a runaway pirate bride galloping away on a camel with an assassin hired by her scorned betrothed on her tail.

I'm serious. That's the first chapter.

Whoever doesn't find this awesome needs to reevaluate their life.

So the premise is (and the only spoilers I'll reveal are what's in the back-cover blurb) Ananna (our pirate protagonist) was forced to marry this idiot son of another pirate captain, but she wasn't too keen on that. So she stole a camel and rode off on it. The pirate prince's family sends an assassin after her. Ananna accidentally does something to curse the assassin (who's name she later learns is Naji) and bonds them together so he's forced to protect her. If he doesn't, he crumples in extreme agony. So they have to go find someone who can break the curse and unbind them. Oh, and now another assassin was sent after Ananna after Naji failed, and some evil magic people are after Naji. So both are on the run from their own problems and they're stuck together--ironically forced to protect each other.

What's so phenomenal about this setup is that you'd think Naji would end up saving Ananna from all the perils of the world, and she'd be a damsel in distress. NOPE! What actually happens is that Naji ends up overusing his magic and collapsing, and then Ananna has to save him. Literally, Naji's just passed out and dying half the book and she has to drag him around, find food and shelter, tend to his wounds, etc. It's so funny and awesome how Clarke switched that up on us, especially since Naji's this super badass and super strong blood mage assassin who can kill someone in a split second, yet he's the one who always needs saving.

But the plot had one major issue, which is why I can't give this book a perfect 5 stars: there was no rising action or climax. Once they make it to these sky islands, the pacing just drops to a dragging standstill. Well, not dragging exactly; it was still interesting to read, but there wasn't anything substantial happening. Naji used up way too magic at once and was basically reduced to an invalid state, and Ananna had to take care of him while he healed, and he had to protect her from the evil magic people hunting him down. This would be fine and dandy if it was just a chapter or two, but it was nearly the entire last 1/3 of the book. With so much action packed into the first half, this long stretch of quietness and ambling about didn't further the plot and felt very empty and dreary in comparison. And the lack of any kind of climax at all made me frown.

The back-cover blurb talks about Naji and Ananna needing to complete three impossible tasks to break their curse. You know what happened? They're only assigned to undertake those three tasks in THE LAST CHAPTER. The entire book led to them finding out about the three tasks (and one of them was "true love's kiss" and I wanted to throw the book out the window--but I didn't because the first half was phenomenal). Obviously, there's a sequel, but this first book should be able to stand alone and give us all the rising and falling action of any normal plot. Had there been a climax, I wouldn't have minded this introduction to the three tasks at the very end and the lies in the blurb.

The Characters

Oh my god they're awesome. I'll start with Ananna. I said before that she's always the one saving Naji when he screws up. She's incredibly resourceful, always telling us the advice and wisdom her father (a pirate captain) gave her, which she uses to make or justify her decisions. Not once did she ever ask for help. Okay, no. Once she asked Naji for help with mathematics (partially to spend more time with him because she had a big crush on him). But other than that, she was always spitting at him, "I can take care of myself." And he understood that and let her do her thing without too much smothering and mothering (unless it put her in a lot of danger, which gave him a lot of agony because of the curse. and even then he wouldn't always object to her going off to find food or shelter).

And she's one hell of a sword fighter. :) And she can shoot a gun. She's badass while still being very crude and rash and flawed, and I love that about her.

Now Naji. NAJI. Where do I start? He's got this horribly disfiguring burn scar on his face (Zuko anyone?). And he's actually really self-conscious and humiliated about it! One of the only times he really got pissed at Ananna was when they were visiting this really beautiful sorceress, Leila, with whom he likely had romantic history before his face became disfigured, and Ananna lost his mask. And he got pissed and kept trying to pull his hair over his scar. It was adorable and heart-wrenching and made this badass assassin bloodmage HUMAN. He wasn't the typical arrogant prick in YA romances who wear scars like badges of honor. He was quiet, shy, awkward, and lacked self-confidence when he didn't have his mask on. It was very relatable and garnered a lot of sympathy for him.

And I'll just quote you his most badass moment, which happened when this snotty guy was bullying him about his disfigured face. Naji pulls a sword on the guy and says,

"This is the last time you will ever look at my face. If you see me coming, look the other way. Because if you look at me again, or speak to me again, I'll make sure your face comes out worse than mine."

"Wow" was the word that popped into my head while reading this scene. It was my favorite line from the story. So even though he's humiliated, Naji still manages to stick up for himself. It was seriously commendable and admirable and showed a great deal of inner strength.

The Writing

I love Clarke's writing style! Ananna has such a unique and phenomenal voice. It's crude and unpolished and grammatically incorrect, and it's just a pleasure to read! I'm usually not partial to female protagonists because they tend to be whiny and care about superficial appearances and generally have a dry or flowery voice and whatnot, but Ananna was a true pirate baby and it showed. I love all her little additions and comments. Whenever she made a simile, it showed pirate and seafarer roots: "...and then I smelled smoke, and I got kind of drifty and floaty, like I was in the sea. Best part of the whole day." :) I can't express how much I love Ananna's voice and the writing in general. Very detailed and so true to Ananna's character.

The only criticism I have with Clarke's writing is that there's a bit of filtering going on, which distances us from Ananna a bit, but her strong voice was more than enough to compensate.

The World

Clarke created such a rich and magical world! I love the contrasting settings of the story: the desert (and just think of all the conflict of a pirate trudging through the desert!), the sea (and an assassin on a ship is almost just as backward), and the creepy forest of the Isles of the Sky (yes, the island actually floats! can't get cooler than floating islands). Ananna is a great narrator to teach us about pirate lore--all their superstitions, cultures, and mindset that are deeply ingrained in her. We get blood magic and dirt magic, prophets, river witches, wizards, assassins, pirates, merchants, sirens, CAMELS, gods with starfishes. It's such a wide and colorful spectrum of culture and walks of life elegantly and naturally blended together, told through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old pirate. The whole world was such a unique, magical, and pleasurable thing to experience.

Overall, this book was huge fun to read, and I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel! I highly recommend The Assassin's Curse to anyone wanting a fun pirate-assassin adventure with a bit of humanity thrown in.

4/5 stars