Tess of the Road

Books | Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / General

3.8

(242)

Rachel Hartman

Award-winning Rachel Hartman's newest YA is a tour de force and an exquisite fantasy for the #metoo movement."Tess of the Road is astonishing and perfect. It's the most compassionate book I've read since George Eliot's Middlemarch." --NPRIn the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons can be whomever they choose. Tess is none of these things. Tess is. . . different. She speaks out of turn, has wild ideas, and can't seem to keep out of trouble. Then Tess goes too far. What she's done is so disgraceful, she can't even allow herself to think of it. Unfortunately, the past cannot be ignored. So Tess's family decide the only path for her is a nunnery. But on the day she is to join the nuns, Tess chooses a different path for herself. She cuts her hair, pulls on her boots, and sets out on a journey. She's not running away, she's running towards something. What that something is, she doesn't know. Tess just knows that the open road is a map to somewhere else--a life where she might belong.Returning to the spellbinding world of the Southlands she created in the award-winning, New York Times bestselling novel Seraphina, Rachel Hartman explores self-reliance and redemption in this wholly original fantasy.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR * BOSTON GLOBE * The Chicago Public Library * KIRKUS REVIEWSFour starred reviews!"The world building is gorgeous, the creatures are vivid and Hartman is a masterful storyteller. Pick up this novel, and savor every page." --Paste Magazine

Fantasy

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Author

Rachel Hartman

Pages

544

Publisher

Random House Children's Books

Published Date

2018-02-27

ISBN

1101931302 9781101931301

Community ReviewsSee all

"It wasn't really my thing but was entertaining. "

Sunflower

"Absolutely amazing book with fantastic character development. I bought the second book as soon as possible as I was dying to know what happened next. This and the second book are my favorite books I have read and I have not read Seraphina. This was beautifully written with a structure where you start off knowing nothing about the past as they slowly fill it in with clues. It’s has an amazing adventure with mini stories about her journey and the people she meets that will change her forever."

C V

Cara Vest

"Wow. This book was incredible. The character development was incredible and it deals with such real issues, even within its fantasy setting. Tess is an incredible character with such amazing nuance and her development from bitter, jaded, yet sheltered girl to fully self actualized woman making peace with her past and her trauma was some of the best literature I've read in a long time.<br/>The author does a fantastic job making her characters incredibly flawed, but likeable. In the beginning of the book, Tess is constantly simmering with anger, lashing out at everyone and thinking the worst of them amd of herself. But she's also so deeply entrenched in an environment that is so toxic and awful, that you fully understand why she acts the way she does.<br/>Her struggle with her faith, and the extreme purity culture she was raised in was both powerful, and very relatable. And as more of her tragic past is revealed you really begin empathizing with her, especially as she grows beyond her bitterness and learns to deal with her trauma.<br/>I loved this book. Tess's journey is as internal as it is external and every single moment was worth journeying with her."

Shelby

"I wasn’t really getting along with this book. I thought maybe it was just a me problem but after watching and reading a lot of reviews it just has no plot. It’s not horrible if you’re into meandering books. I myself enjoy that sometimes but I just don’t like the characters in this enough for it to work for me."