I used to be a big fan of the anime and manga series Attack on Titan and still enjoy it to an extent (I really need to catch up…) so I was pleasantly surprised to see a tie-in YA novel being released from Quirk Books. So bear in mind that this review is coming from someone already familiar with the source material! (If you haven’t watched the anime, the first season is on Netflix UK, so I would recommend it if you like the sound of this book.)

Attack on Titan is set in kind of an alternate historical version of our world, where most humans have been devoured by Titans – humanoid giants with a taste for flesh. Humans retreated behind three massive concentric walls – Wall Maria, Wall Rose and Wall Sina – and lived this way for a century, before the appearance of one “Colossal” Titan caused the fall of the outermost wall, Wall Maria, and led to more slaughter.

The anime series – and this book, which is set during the first season – picks up five years after the fall of Wall Maria. Garrison Girl is about Rosalie Dumarque, a rich girl who wants to join the garrison who patrol the Wall Rose and keep an eye out for Titans. It’s kind of your standard “I don’t want to get married and do my duty” rebellious princess trope, but it works quite well here – mainly because it differentiates from the series, which focuses on a bunch of kids from the outer walls rather than the rich centre.

It’s a very trope-y book. There’s the grumpy male lead who at first looks down on the “spoiled princess” Rosalie – and I’d mark for spoilers if it wasn’t so obvious what was going to happen. Forbidden romance, anyone? However, even though it’s completely predictable, it’s very sweet, and ends up tying directly into the overreaching plot, causing drama all round. As if man-eating giants weren’t enough to worry about!

Don’t worry, it’s not romance all the time. There’s plenty of Titan-fighting (including one particularly visceral scene where Rosalie ends up in a Titan’s mouth) and it soon becomes apparent that a conspiracy is afoot.

For fans of the show, there’s a nice Eren Yeager cameo – that’s all I’m going to say! But if you haven’t watched the anime or read the manga, you’ll still be able to enjoy this – Rachel Aaron does a great job explaining the world of the Titans and describing their horrifying forms in detail. There’s something uncanny-valley about the weirdly proportioned Titans in the show, and she manages to translate this into text form. Everything is explained well – I don’t think the author left out any of the basics.

While predictable in many ways, this was a very enjoyable read and the world of Attack on Titan translates very well to YA fiction – honestly, the show is about a bunch of teenagers fighting monsters, and I’ve read plenty of YA books that are just as graphic in their gore and horror! I was glad it didn’t cross over too much with the events of the series (one scene in particular near the end will be recognisable to fans of the show) and focused on brand new characters, allowing Aaron to expand the world a little bit and give us a different view of what’s happening within the walls. The romance will appeal to anyone who likes that “bickering turns to kissing” trope (I definitely do) and the cast features some fun new characters – the other members of Rosalie and Jax’s team add some much-needed humour to the dark story.

If you’ve read or watched Attack on Titan, you’ll likely enjoy this (if you don’t mind a bit more romance than the show/comic). If you’re a fan of YA fantasy with a sprinkle of horror (those Titans are GROSS) then this should be right up your street – I don’t think it matters if you’re not familiar with the source material. It seems to be setting up for a sequel, so I look forward to more Attack on Titan YA!

I love attack on titan, so to have come across a novel set in that world made it an imediate must read for me. I throughly enjoyed this, the characters were engaging, the story line kept me hooked and i truly felt i was transported into the middle of attack on titan.