I got this book off of Netgalley as an eARC.

I have mixed feelings about this book.
It has a strong female protagonist as does Seraphina, however it has the whole rape backstory, which sucks.
So the whole premise is that Tess needs to get away from her mother as she's pretty much abusive and hates Tess for being raped and getting pregnant as the religion of her mom is St. Vitt which is an analog of Christianity.
Tess then gets the opportunity to run away from home and meets up with Pathka, her childhood quigtl friend.
We then find out that quigtl can change their sex so Pathka is now male instead of the female quigtl that Tess knew. This is important as quigtl have the gender neutral pronoun 'ko' which never gets used when talking about Pathka. This really bothered me because there is a correct pronoun and it's not being used.
There's also a homeless man that Tess is horribly cruel to, just so she can have a moment of redemption getting help for him.
After she meets Pathka then the whole book is about her going after ko goal of Anathuthia. After thus it's pretty much set in arcs of what happens. She gets to a place then thing happens, gets to another place and another thing happens. That may or may not be your thing, but to me it felt like it was padding.
Overall it felt as if there was a hatred of women as it was women that seemed to be the ones hurting Tess, even inadvertently, to where she'd run to the arms of a man to seek consoling. This is kind of painful to see for a book that wants strong women. They just don't seem to support each other as much as I'd like to see.

Overall it's not a bad book, but I really wish it wouldn't have done a lot of things it did.

I really tried to like this but it was so slow moving and relied so heavily on world building that was far too weak that I took ages to finally finish. The concept was great but the execution left much to be desired.

The plot meanders, the main character is unlikable, and it's nearly incomprehensible if you hadn't read the other books first. And no dragons. I gave up at the 40% mark.

*ARC via netgalley*

This one really hit me in the gut. Tess's journey is such a thoughtful event, and Tess's realizations about herself, her life, consent, pleasure, and her place in the world are beautiful.

Wish I had read Seraphina, but as I hadn't I didn't feel comfortable reading this without that prior reference. Without that point I'm going to be fair to this book and give it 3 stars

Don't judge a book by its cover well guess what I did!!! How could I not pick this book when it has a dragon heading straight down! The cover is the best and I am sorry to say that all this book has going for it I DNF at 51% I just could connect to any of the characters and not ONE DRAGON was in the story!!!!!!


My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

❝ "Wherever you are is my home, always. Us against the world." ❞

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Let me start by saying that I came into Tess of the Road not knowing very much about the world, its characters, or the backstory. One thing I liked right away was that we didn't get any big info-dumps regarding the author's other series. I didn't feel like I needed to have read Seraphina before reading this book, which was good.

Unfortunately, because of the big time gap between the first chapter (when Tess is very young) and the next chapter (when Tess is practically an adult) I suddenly felt like I was missing a lot of information. Things had definitely happened between the two points. All the tension between Tess and her family and the mystery of what this sore spot created a bit of unnecessary confusion. At the same time, it had me glued to every page trying to get clues about what had happened to make Tess fall so far out of favor.

The beginning of the book was more centered around family tensions. Tess's relationship with her mother was especially toxic. I felt for Tess when her mother was constantly criticizing her and making her feel like she was just in the way. I sympathized with her and hated how abusive her mother was. I was also frustrated with how her father seemed very passive and didn't take on much of an active role. It seemed that despite the father's mistakes it was really Tess who paid for his sins. She was the family punching bag, always being picked on and blamed.

And in the middle of all this chaos, Tess relied upon her twin, Jeanne. It was always them "against the world".  Jeanne was the ideal child, doted upon, favored, and loved and Tess took it upon herself to shelter Jeanne from the worst the world had to offer. She focused her whole life on helping Jeanne navigate life, helping her avoid her own mistakes, ensuring her a good future. I felt like we didn't really get to know Jeanne very well. She was always in control of her emotions, proper, and helpful.

It's only after other events transpire that Tess finds herself at a crossroads. She can keep trying to earn her family's acceptance or she can run away and try to carve her own future. One Tess decides to start over on the road her path leads her to an old childhood friend, Pathka, and soon they begin an adventure to finds the world's serpents.

❝ "The world is surprisingly hard to destroy," said Pathka gently. "Whereas saving it can be done a bit at a time [...]" ❞

In general, I found Tess's character to be interesting. She abused alcohol as a way to deal with her family and her past mistakes, she carried a lot of guilt and remorse, and she struggled to accept herself. I think her character was a mess emotionally and mentally, but she was trying. Tess seemed to be caught between wanting to be good daughter her family expected and the incorrigible troublemaker everyone told her she was.

At the same time, however, it wasn't enough to really get me to fall in love with the book. Tess had some minor adventures while on the road. With this book having dragons I was expecting more action and adventure, but really Tess of the Road is more of Tess's personal journey of self-acceptance. It dealt with some very adult topics like being a good mother, alcoholism, verbal abuse, losing a child, and rape. It didn't read like a YA at times which was neither good nor bad, just something to be aware of. 

The journey to find the world's serpents really felt like an aside/background to the book. Tess's issues always took precedence over everything else. I was expecting the fantasy elements to take more of an active role in the story besides just the characters' races/species or the background but that wasn't the case in this book. Really, the setting could have been anywhere else with all human characters and the story could go on just the same with Tess on the road. For it being in the fantasy genre I was kind of disappointed on that end.

Overall, I think this book had an interesting character and premise, but it just didn't deliver on the fantasy end. 

Tess of the Road was released just last month on February 27th so if you're interested go pick up a copy!

I wish I'd known that this was related to Rachel Hartman's other books. It's not that I didn't understand what was going on, but I probably would have appreciated the references more if I had read the other books.

So <i>Tess of the Road</i> is a good story. Not a great story, but a good one. Tess as a character is pretty relatable, especially if you grew up in a religious family or area. She's not very likable in the sense that most main characters are. There is a lot of internal misogyny that was painful to read, and this is definitely one of those books where I wanted to reach through the pages and smack a bunch of people. And while Tess does grow as a character, she never becomes particularly likable, and that's okay, because she doesn't have to be. She never turns into the quintessential YA heroine, and that's okay, too, because normal people exist.

The plot is a little meandering, but I imagine that's intentional, as Tess is lost and trying to find somewhere she fits in. I'm not sure how I feel about the abruptness of the ending, but as it seems as though this is the first in a series, I suppose I can excuse that. The story is messy, because Tess is messy. It deals with some heavy subjects, and I cried several times. YA books never feel particularly "young" to me, but this one didn't feel like YA simply because of the subject matter.

One thing that I think was well done was Tess's relationship with Will. At the beginning of the book, you think it was one way, and then by the time you get to the end, you realize you were completely wrong. (At least I was. This probably depends on your own preconceptions. Maybe other people are more jaded and called it right away.) I'm not usually a fan of revealing information a little bit at a time, but in this case I think it worked well.

All in all, I didn't dislike the book, but I don't know if I'll continue on with the series. A character doesn't have to be likable to be compelling, but I have to like the character to care about what happens to them, and as it is, I'm okay with Tess's story ending here.

FIRST: O-M-G this cover might be my favourite, I love it a lot and can’t take my eyes off of it.

I have conflicted feelings about Tess of the Road so please indugle me and excuse me if this all comes a little bit disjointed. I had quite a rocky start with this novel and there are several reasons for that.
I still want to say up here that ultimately, seeing where the author was going with this all, I was won over by what this book turned out to be.
The main themes of the novel are teen pregnancy, being a girl in a very mysogynistic fantasy world, trauma, healing through traveling. Most of all, this novel tackles rape culture.

The first thing that bothered me was that while I tried, I couldn’t connect to Tess in the beginning. I still feel bitter about the way Seraphina was portrayed but I cannot say I didn’t like Tess because she’s a very complex character, one we so rarely find in YA fantasy: a girl who made many mistakes, a girl with a giant heart and conscience, who’s trying to do good and fight against what she’s been taught. In her journey, Tess will grow a lot and will be confronted to her prejudiced views and the way it made her see herself, she will learn from that, often in a hard way.

I do understand how interesting it is that a beloved main character from a previous book is seen on a totally different light here, to see that the character you were rooting for is not the same person in another’s eyes. But it made for a difficult realisation.

For the writing, I didn’t love the many flashbacks and the way some sort of reveal on something everyone could guess early on is revealed, it was a bit annoying. I understand it is to stick to Tess’s state of mind and slow coming to term with what happened; but it just made the reveal drag on and I was looking forward for the story to really start, the set up is a bit long but also necessary? *I am still confused about my feelings to be honest*

Another important thing about Tess is that she’s a twin. At first it feels like she’s the “bad” one and her sister’s the good one, which from what I read is a trope frown upon by real twins. But it is also something that the story tackles later on.

Tess is one of these characters that I couldn’t help but like when I began to understand her better. Her love of animals and especially of megafauna was heart warming. She is a very passionate person and that’s the main point that made me warm up to her.

I also loved the conversation about linguistics and the difficulty of translation between two languages and cultures that have such different concepts.

The book addresses a lot of very important subjects, like the matter of periods while traveling in a medieval-fantasy world, contraception, masturbation, triggers, prostitution, genders and sexualities.

In the end, most of my first issues with the novel were addressed, and the things that were a matter of personnal opinion were also narrative choices that I understood to some degress. But I am sadden at how late some things were addressed or undone, because I could have stopped reading anytime and not known what treasure this book was holding.

While it took its sweet time to get there, I’m glad I decided to give this book a chance. In a way that book is like Tess herself, hard to get around at first, full of contradictions and off-putting, but impossible de hate. Still, Tess and the novel itself grew on me and won me over, despite my first disapproval and disappointment. I’m not forgetting the things that I didn’t like, but if at the beginning I thought the bad outweighed the good, in the end I can say the good outweighed the bad and I just cannot regret reading this.

This novel begs a bit of faith from the reader, and shouldn’t expect it, but I gave it and was rewarded for it. Now I can only tell fellow readers that I took the leap and can vouch in some ways that this book isn’t entirely terrible and can even be worth the read if you are ready for the punch it’ll deliver to your feelings and expectations. You might end up disappointed if you enter this book looking for action, adventure and dragons. This is more of an internal journey, a psychological and hard look at the society of this medieval fantasy world but also at our own.

So yeah, the novel relies too heavily on the reader’s trust and faith, it is a very draining novel, not a light read at all, but still an important one.

A quick last thing: I read Seraphina but not not Shadow Scale, and I feel I should have because as much as this book tries to stand on its own and to remind the reader really quick of the political situation and previous events, it’s not always very clear and I’m sure I would have enjoyed some things way more.

So with the accurate warnings beforehand, this book could do a lot of good. But think of the warnings before recommending this book because the subjects are so so heavy and could be dangerously triggering to some readers.

(I still feel like I could go on and on discussing this book but this is already WAY too long I’ll stop here!)

Content warnings: suicidal ideation/planning, rape, pregnancy/delivery, miscarriage, slut-shaming, deaths
To be honest I might even be forgetting some, I’d recommend checking other reviews just in case.

I did not completely hate this book but was fooled by the cover. I wanted a tremendous amount of dragons and fighting and a epic high fantasy. Instead, I found the MC to be tedious and NO DRAGONS WHATSOEVER! From the disaster she causes at her sister’s wedding to her pretending to be the misunderstood victim for the rest of the book. I believe that she acts out to get attention and that she chooses to put herself into the situations that make her seem to be “misunderstood”.
I struggled to finish this book because the author kept going off on random tangents and adding so much fluff that the storyline suffered more for the additional wording. The reader must undergo so many dark undertones and constant chaos that the story becomes too heavy of a read to enjoy. Yes, I believe that the author has the ability to spin a fantastic tale and to build worlds that are viable. No, I do not believe that she achieved that with Tess.
It takes a huge toll on me to DNF a book so I tried to start and restart this book too many times. I eventually gave up and called it a lost cause. Just because this book is not for me, does not mean that I would sway anyone from reading Tess. I would encourage those who love a story that supports full-on feminism.
The only that I even remote enjoyed about this book was the cover and it was a complete LIE! I do not understand why there was a dragon simmering with the night sky on it? Unless Tess thinks that she is some type of dragon for being rogue, disconnected from the world, and constantly the center of controversy? That being said, I am highly disappointed that I was misled into wanting this book because of the cover and the misleading blurb!
I do appreciate Netgalley and Random House Children’s Publishing company for allowing me access to the book for this review. I apologize that the book was not for me and that I cannot say I enjoyed it.

Tess of the Road was an interesting read. Tess is a little weird, a little damanged, and a lot drunk. I am not a big fan of drinking and ya character. But it is a rich fantasy world and any fantasy lover should give Tess a shot.

I was unaware that this was a companion novel to Seraphina prior to request, so there was some background information I just wasn't privy to. It was still enjoyable enough to get through the book, but I think it would've been better had I read Seraphina.

Tess of the Road was a decent expansion of the world Rachel Hartman first showed us in her Seraphina duology. In Seraphina and Shadow Scale, we were given a world of mathematical dragons and the humans who were prejudiced against them, though both societies were held together with a peace treaty. Eventually, war began amongst them again and our heroine discovered a lot about herself and society. I really loved the political world building in that original duology, and also came to love the characters themselves. If you haven't read that duology yet, then you should.

This book is set in the same world as Seraphina, but follows Tess, Seraphina's younger half-sister. You don't have to have read the duology to enjoy it, I don't think, but it would definitely help you envision the world a bit better. Tess is kind of a troublemaker, and she doesn't want to be the prim and proper lady-in-waiting that her twin sister is. She's had some trouble in the past (which is revealed slowly throughout) and has pretty much been relegated to the black sheep of the family and no longer feels as though she has any agency in her own life. After making a mess at a large social gathering, she takes to the road, along with a quigutl (think a mini-dragon cousin--who dragons don't like). Their adventures are what make up the bulk of the story.

What I really liked about this book was that it was socially conscious fantasy. It had a lot to say about women and how we move through the world, and the things we must do to keep ourselves safe. Tess's story is deeply rooted in these issues, and they're such an important thing to cover in our current moment. Not only does it show how women must take care when interacting with men, but it also shows how society and even those we love can contribute to a culture of silence and blame surrounding things like sexual assault (Trigger warnings!).

I've also seen a lot of reviewers say that Tess is unlikeable, and I think it's great to have protagonists who are, but I didn't find her unlikeable myself. Personally, I found her intriguing and real, and I feel like there's so much more to unpack in her character that I really hope there are future installments of her story. She doesn't always make the best choices, but who does? In fact, at times in the story, I just tried to will her from doing the things I could tell she was about to do, but we all have to make our mistakes. Tess was very human and I love having characters like that. No one is perfect, and I don't need my book characters to be either.

Finally, while I enjoyed this book, there were a few parts that lagged and sometimes I felt like it could have picked up the pace just a teensy bit more. I did still read it in two days, though, so take that as you will. Also, while the reader gets some glimpses of Seraphina, I really would have loved more involvement with her and other characters from her story...but mainly because I miss them (honestly don't think it would've worked if they were in it a lot more). It does seem like there are some openings for them to be more involved in the future, though. Overall, this was a pretty strong fantasy story with great coming of age elements, but also some great social commentary on the role of women in our world (trigger warnings for sexual assault).

Right away I loved the folk tale feel of this story. It pulled me in and felt classic and fresh all at once. As a Seraphina fan I was eagerly awaiting my chance to dive into this story. But to be clear, while Tess is set in the same world, all of the characters are new and this story feels much heavier and darker.
There is so much to love about this story. Hartman's writing is, as always, on point. This book is not for the reluctant reader though because the prose and the fantastical elements are not simple or easy, which isn't a good or bad thing, just something I feel should be mentioned in a review for young readers.
The messages in this book are quite mature, but not ones children shouldn't be aware of. I think readers of all ages will root for Tess in all of her complexity and vulnerability, and get lost in her quest and adventure. Tess grows as a character and like any good middle grade protagonist, she needs to discover her strengths and weaknesses and put them together to become the person she was meant to be.
I love this world and this new important story that has been told within it.

Tess of the Road is a young adult fantasy novel about a young woman who finds herself rejected by her family, destined for a nunnery, but runs away to complete a quest with her childhood friend Pathka. Tess disgraced herself in the eyes of society, and her fate has been decided: she must help her younger sister find a husband, then accept a retreat from society. Ever since this fate was determined, Tess has been taming her rebellious streak with alcohol, but just when she has almost accomplished the task given to her, she finds herself to blame for the destruction at her sister’s wedding. At the last minute, she determines that she cannot spend the rest of her life behind walls – and sneaks out of the house, meeting up with her childhood friend Pathka, who agrees to travel with Tess to complete the quest they dreamed about as children: finding the World Serpents.

I had never read Rachel Hartman’s earlier book Seraphina (which is set in the same world), so I was not quite certain what to expect out of this one. I had imagined either a high fantasy or, after starting it, perhaps a light-hearted comedy. Tess of the Road, however, manages both. Tess’s world is a medieval setting with highly technical magic, and dragons that can shape-shift into humans. Tess’s older half sister Seraphina is half dragon herself. The religion in this book was fascinating to me – it managed to be precisely nonsensical enough to imitate our own world’s religions. Dragons are of course dangerous but still usually educated and wise. Humans are still somehow the superior race, despite evidence to the contrary. Human-dragon pairings are highly controversial, but the children of those couples are “saints” – revered by the world around them, and their thoughts are recorded and often quoted. Most fascinating are the quigutl – lizard-like cousins to the dragons who are clearly as rational as humans and dragons, but they are generally considered animals rather than people, and few bother to learn their language. This is the complex world through which Tess travels, hoping to find the World Serpents spoken of in quigutl legends. It sounds as strange as any other fantasy world, but all of the conflicts of that world are familiar. Women are expected to be servants to the men of their family and religious teachings are expected to be followed despite their frequent contradictions. The characters of Tess of the Road still struggle with greed and lust and trauma, people of all races still betray their friends and family, and forgiveness is still the most powerful tool available.

If the world of Tess of the Road is detailed and complex, so are the characters themselves. Tess is a perfect anti-hero; she often makes terrible choices, but her choices are understandable, and while I was not always rooting for her to win, I was always rooting for her to figure things out. She is stubborn and selfish and often acts out from the trauma hiding in her past, but when given the chance to help others, she does time after time, making her ultimately redeemable. Unlike many novels featuring an anti-hero, Tess’s friend Pathka is equally complicated. Pathka too has experienced abuse, nearly losing her life at a young age from a difficult birth after a rape. Pathka is a quigutl – they physically change from male to female many times throughout their lives, so while the Pathka of Tess’s childhood was a female, the Pathka that journeys with Tess is male. Pathka has experienced all the prejudices expected with his race, but still manages to be free of that bitterness. Instead, Pathka seems optimistic to a fault. Because of his own difficult experiences, he acts oblivious to the harm that he is capable of causing. He is swift to judgement and often is unflinchingly harsh with Tess and with others, but Pathka is still deeply capable of love and support, and his utter faith in the existence of the World Serpents is inspiring.

This book does deserve a bit of a content warning – it looks unflinchingly at difficult issues like birth trauma, rape, abuse, and abandonment. Those that are particularly sensitive to those topics might struggle with some scenes of Tess of the Road. However, those topics are handled incredibly well, especially given the target audience. Tess’s world is shown to be controlling of and hateful to women, but even given that setting, there are still many characters who are shown to be respectful and supportive of women, helping Tess continue her journey and address the trauma of her past. Many women are shown to be in positions of power, despite the obstacles presented by the world around them, and Tess is not just aided, but also inspired, and is given the space to heal from her past.

In all, Tess of the Road is absolutely a 10 out of 10. Every aspect of this book is stellar, from the rich characters to the fascinating world to the light-hearted yet still deeply meaningful text. Even non-fantasy fans will find themselves rooting for Tess as she finds her place in the world.

I legitimately don't know whether I liked this book or not. I felt like there was a lot of background info I'd missed from not having read SERAFINA.

A companion novel to the New York Times best-seller "Seraphina," Rachel Hartman's newest young adult fantasy, "Tess of the Road," tells the story of Seraphina's younger half-sister, Tess.

Since she was small, Tess has been the troublemaking half of her twinship with her sweet, obedient sister Jeanne, and her mother's strict religious upbringing made it certain that Tess always knew it. As a young teen, Tess gets into the kind of tragic scandal that could ruin her family, so she throws herself into helping her sister marry well in order to save them. She knows she's condemned to a future of caring for her sister's children or a convent, unsuitable for anything else.

Then, Tess decides she can't take it anymore and runs away to create a future all her own. She travels with her quigutl friend (a lesser form of dragon) to find the ancient, grand dragons of myth and legend and, along the way, runs into all sorts of adventures.

A Tolkienesque quest novel, "Tess of the Road" plods along at a slow pace for much of its length. "Seraphina" and its sequel "Shadow Scale" tell the unique tale of a half-dragon who hid in plain sight as a musician at the royal palace and fell in love with a prince, and its story has a typical, linear plot with a lot more tension because of it. "Tess of the Road" takes place in the same world, but Tess is an ordinary human teenager with some ordinary, if horrible, problems, and she wanders around the countryside for a long time trying to run away from them.

Tess has gone through a lot of trauma and abuse — more than anyone's fair share — and the highlight of the novel is how she overcomes her past. She discovers that she's not so alone and strange as she always thought and instead is worthy of love and happiness. A lot of the heavy topics in the story feel a little beyond young adult, but they're dealt with in an empathetic and poignant way.

Overall, if you can get through the dragging middle section, readers will be rewarded with a beautiful message of resilience and healing. They will also get to know a character whose growth is believable and remarkable, and maybe even familiar to us humans.

Tess of the Road by Rachel Hartman

5 stars

“You can’t walk away without also walking toward.”

Tess always been the “bad” child. The daughter who never did anything right. Her existence has consisted of one failure after another and her mother never lets her forget. After ruining her twin sister’s wedding night, she finds herself with the opportunity to run away. She can go on the road and live out the adventures she chased after as a child or she can enter a convent and appease her mother. Tess chooses the road (cloaking herself as a man for protection) and reunites with an old quitgul (a reptile-like creature) friend. Together they embark on the road together and encounters many adventures, but their greatest adventure is discovering the Great Serpent that calls to Pathka in ko’s (pronoun for the quitgul race) dreams. The serpent may be able to help Tess pull herself out of the darkness and if not, at least the road will. I will leave Tess of the Road with that simple and very confusing summary because I want readers to go into this novel without knowing much. This is a spinoff to Seraphina (which I haven’t read) and I honestly don’t believe that hindered my understanding. It spoiled Seraphina for me, but it didn’t lessen my excitement to go back and immerse myself in more of Hartman’s world. This novel is genius. I think my favorite thing about Tess of the Road is the world building. This world is vast. The creatures are countless. The religions are numerous and the quitgul’s have their own language. I’m pretty sure Hartman has some background in linguistics because she has put so much love into every little intricate detail about the creatures Tess encounters in different parts of her life. Hartman’s writing style is crisp, addictive, and emotionally captivating. I was so incredibly moved by Tess’s narrative. She has one of the most gut-wrenching stories I’ve come across in a YA fantasy. Hartman is an author to be watched and I can’t believe it has taken me so long to pick up one of her works (especially knowing how many people raved about Seraphina)!


Whimsical Writing Scale: 5

“The road was possibility, the kind she’d thought her life would never hold again, and Tess herself was motion. Motion had no past, only future. Any direction you walked was forward, and that was as must be.”

The main female character is Tess. Tess is full of imagination, but her naivety has also caused her great pain and this has hardened her from a young age. Tess is full of trigger warnings. She’s an adolescent alcoholic who imbibes at the worst of times, but that alcoholism is rooted in the pain of her past. We learn early on that Tess had a baby out of wedlock. We don’t know where the baby is or what exactly happened and we also don’t know the story of how the baby came to be. It’s all hidden away into crevices within Tess and as she embarks on her journey on the road more and more becomes slowly revealed to the reader. I’m going to discuss put the major trigger warnings in spoiler tags because they are massive spoilers one of these warning does not come about until the last 87% of the novel. [ Tess had a relationship with a man who groomed her and raped her when she was barley fourteen years old (not revealed until 87% of the way through). This results in her becoming pregnant and having a baby as a teen. She delivers the baby prematurely and it results in her son, Dozerius, dying within only a couple of days of living. (hide spoiler)] Tess’s experiences have hardened her, but she is always so compassionate towards others (even those who don’t deserve it). She is one of my favorite heroines and I am so happy to have been privileged to know her story because it was one meant to be told.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 5

There are so many characters in this novel. Pathka is an integral character. She was once best friends with Tess, but now he (quitgul’s are able to change their gender) and Tess are basically family. Seeing their dynamic on the road was so emotionally gripping. I loved their relationship. The fights they had were real and not contrived, but they always understood one another. Kikiu is Pathka’s daughter and she also makes several appearances that slightly baffled me, but were also incredibly enduring. Pathka and Kikiu have a very odd relationship, but it was so amazing to see another species’ family dynamic. Seraphina also plays an important role in Tess’s journey starting and eventually changing course. There were so many characters and I want to talk about all of them, but it’s better to go on the road and discover them alongside Tess.


Character Scale: 5

The Villain- The interesting thing about this fantasy novel is that it doesn’t have a BIG BAD VILLAIN, which is a pleasant contrast to the usual political takedown plots that keep the fantasy genre afloat. Tess of the Road doesn’t need a villain because life is evil enough sometimes. Tess’s own mistakes and the mistakes of those around her affect the dynamic of her life and it, in turn, moves her onto different courses. It’s a contemporary novel set in a fantasy world and I loved that.


Villain Scale: 5 Life can suck LOL

I really want people to read Tess of the Road. This is the second YA fantasy novel I’ve come across this year that tackled teen pregnancy (Reign the Earth) and both of those novels were superb. I want people to go on an adventure with no dire plot or overall meaning. There is no failure in this novel when it comes to the adventure because for the longest time the reader isn’t sure of the adventure. This probably makes no sense, but it’s a philosophical novel that tackles interesting topics and if that’s your jam, then you definitely want to pick up this novel.


Plotastic Scale: 5

Cover Thoughts: This cover is stunning. When I started reading it made no sense, but now it holds all the meaning of the world within this novel.

Thank you, Netgalley and Random House Books for Young Readers, for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Tess of the Road. I hope there are more.

Tess of the Road may be set in the world of the Southlands, but it’s not a continuation of Seraphina or Shadow Scale. This book is all about Tess, who is Seraphina’s half sister. In fact, it stands so much apart that if you haven’t read Hartman’s previous books, you are just fine.

I wish I could say I like Tess of the Road as much as Hartman’s other books, but it is slow getting started. Tess doesn’t actually get on the road until you’re almost a full fourth of the way into the book. Things do pick up leading to her “escape,” but it takes a while.

Tess isn’t a particularly likeable character, and her overall story arc doesn’t feel new or interesting. I found myself pushing to get through this one, which isn’t something I like doing. I’d check this one out at the library before purchasing it.