The Girl and the Moon by Mark Lawrence

Released April 26th, 2022

Book 3 of The Book of the Ice Trilogy

**Spoiler alert for the previous two books.**

I first read The Book of the Ancestor trilogy by Mark Lawrence, and could not get enough of him! I then bought all three Impossible Time books and found out that my boyfriend had his Broken Empire trilogy and The Red Queen’s War trilogy and then I even became a member of his Patreon!

Needless to say, I love everything Mark Lawrence puts out. But The Book of the Ice trilogy is some of his most beautiful work. By book 3, Yaz has traveled from the ice to the green belt with the help of her friends and an untrusted ally. You really should read the other two books before you read this review! Anyway, Yaz is set to be executed by Eular at the start of this book and it does not stop with the twists and turns. Not only is this book a satisfying, if a bittersweet end to The Book of the Ice trilogy, but it is also the “capstone” of his previous 14 books (according to Mark Lawrence). I don’t know how this man managed to weave these stories together so seamlessly but he did, and I may just have to go back and read/listen to them in the story timeline.

The story is complex and rich in a way that reminds me of Lord of the Rings. I know, cliche to be reminded of LOTR, but Lawrence has incredible amounts of detail to the point that I would not be surprised if he had a whole other book’s worth of background that didn’t make it into these stories.

Yaz as a main character is at times difficult but that only makes me love her more. She has difficult decisions to make and no one will take that burden from her, in fact, most people add to it. On the other hand, Yaz is one of the most compassionate characters I’ve ever seen. The whole series starts with her throwing herself after her brother to certain death. The other characters that fill this world are full of complex emotions and motivations as well. Each takes up the mantle of the protagonist at key moments. This seems the most realistic character and story evolution/progression to me because Yaz cannot do everything herself, she doesn’t know everything. The information that is relayed through each character is some of my favorite language used throughout Lawrence’s books. Histories are told in eloquent, descriptive, yet simple folktale styles. This works to build the world and setting.

The setting has had six books (The Book of the Ancestor trilogy and The Book of the Ice trilogy) to be fully explored and the world built up around the characters, but even so by The Girl and the Moon, we are still getting information on how the world works! This might sound dubious, but Lawrence has released the setting information very well from the point of view of young characters, this way nothing seems out of place upon reveal.

I think this will be one of those series that lasts for a very long time. Read it now, so you can tell your friends that you read it when it first came out!

Where to buy:

Hard Cover

Kindle

Audiobook

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