I tend to be inclined to binge things, so if I have all the books in a series or all the shows, I’ll go through them until I’ve finished everything. This was true with the Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce which I recently refinished with Lioness Rampant (Young Adult Fantasy 384 pages).

“‘I’m not sure I want to be a hero anymore.’ Having achieved her dream of becoming the first female knight errant, Alanna of Trebond is not sure what to do next. Perhaps being a knight errant is not all that Alanna needs … But Alanna must pusher her uncertainty aside when a new challenge arises. She must recover the Dominion Jewel, a legendary gem with enormous power for good – but only in the right hands. And she must work quickly. Tortall is in great danger, and Alanna’s archenemy, Duke Roger, is back – and more powerful than ever. In this final book of the Song of the Lioness quartet, Alanna discovers that she indeed has a future worthy of her mythic past – both as a warrior and as a woman.”

This is the finale book in the Song of the Lioness quartet. The story is really good because it shows that if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything. In the series, Alanna becomes a knight, then a shaman, and even gets to train with a Shang warrior. She defeats her nemesis, who attempts to kill the royal family and take the throne, and even wins an artifact of power to help her kingdom. She continues to work hard and she earns her place in history.

While I do enjoy this book, and it’s the final book in the series, I have one issue with how the book ended. The main heroine finishes her adventures, saves the day, then makes plans to get married and have a family. I appreciate very much that the ending was Alanna’s choice and that neither the marriage nor the family was actually shown in the book. I also appreciate that she realizes what a horrible thing it would be for Alanna to marry Jonathan and take the throne because of what that would do to the kingdom. They both put the needs of the kingdom over their own individual desires and eventually, they both realized that they loved other people and those other people made them individually happy. Overall, this book is a low three on my rating scale. I’m glad that I own it and I will continue to reread this book at the end of the quartet in the future.

Pierce, Tamora. Lioness Rampant. New York: Simon Pulse, 1988.