Girls Rule!! (Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett)

Member Name: x-TakeMeHome-x

Product:	Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
Date:	19/10/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant story :)

Disadvantages: Bit complicated at first :(

I started reading Terry Pratchett's 'Equal Rites' as a break from my college study books at night time before bed.

I don't know what made me pick it up really off the bookshelf, I think it was the hocus pocus cover, lol!?

The cover says this book cost £5.99 but our copy is old so I think it would be more now...

Equal Rites is the third book in a series called Discworld by the author which talks about a world which is flat like a dish and carried along on the back of a gigantic turtle called A'Tuin.

A'Tuin is 10,000miles wide and then there are four elephants on top of him who carry around the large wheel of Discworld.

The story is set in a village called Bad Ass where a baby is about to born as a wizard finds his way there to spend his dying moments.

The wizard called Drum Billet has to pass his staff onto the 8th son of an 8th son and in this case he thinks that's going to be the child of the village's Blacksmith called Gordo.

As the story gets underway the child is born and as far as Drum Billet is concerned his job is done as he leaves the magical Wizard's staff for the baby son as he grows up...but the son turns out to be a girl!

Panicking the Blacksmith calls on bad Ass's resident witch called Granny Weatherwax who's a crotchety old lady that enjoys her status as a magical know it all!

Granny tries to get rid of the staff but fails miserably so it sits there for nearly six years until the little girl called Eskarina -or Esk for short - starts displaying too much natural magic so Granny takes her to live with her until it all gets out of hand...

Deciding to go off from Ramtops Mountains where they live into the big wide flat Discworld to try and find a Wizard School they set off to the town of Ohulan Cutash.

From then on you read about their adventures as they travel about trying to find the University and if they do will they accept Esk as a girl when Wizards are alwayd by tradition men?

I really enjoyed this story although it was a bit hard to get into at first!

I had not read any of Terry Pratchet's work before so it was full of complicated new words and ideas but once I started to understand his style of language I really started to get into it.

Esk is really sweet but feisty and Granny Weatherwax is so funny so it is fun to see how they get on away from home and what happens at then end of their journey. I think I would have preferred to start with the first Discworld book and read them in order but you don't need to do that.

Five stars for a fun book that is complicated at first but really cleverly written and has so many descriptions in it you almost get swallowed up! :)

Summary: Read it! :)