Forest Born - 5 stars

     Forest Born, the last book in The Books of Bayern series, is my personal favorite. It is the story of Razo's sister Rin, the only girl in a large family from the Forest. Rin is a quiet girl, and everybody thinks of her as her mother's shadow. But Rin has secrets of her own that no one has ever guessed at.

     Rin has a connection to trees that goes beyond the ordinary understanding that all people who live in the Forest have. Rin can feel them in a way that is beyond her understanding. But after she does something terrible, something which makes her ashamed to be herself, the trees turn against her and she can find no comfort in the Forest. If Rin is ever going to feel right in her own self again, she must find out how to fix what is wrong inside. 

     But she can't do that at home in the Forest among her family, so she goes with Razo to the capital city to be a waiting woman for Queen Isi. Rin admires Isi's quiet strength and her confidence and wishes she could feel that way herself. When Isi learns that there are hostile fire-speakers in Bayern again, attacking her husband's soldiers, she sets out to stop them forever, taking Enna and Dasha with her. And Rin, who is determined to stay near Isi, follows them. 

     But it's not fire-speakers who pose the greatest threat to Bayern and to Isi. Selia is back, the girl who tried to have Isi killed when she first came to Bayern so that she could become the queen. Selia escaped from her death sentence and now she's revealed herself once again. Isi and her friends are her prisoners, and it's up to Rin to somehow break them free so that Selia can be defeated once and for all. That will be harder than it sounds, because Selia has Rin's brother Razo and Isi's little son Tusken in her power. Rin will need all the courage she has to be brave enough to do what needs to be done. And in doing so, she will realize why she feels broken inside.

     Forest Born resonated strongly with me. It's a story about a girl who feels lost inside herself and doesn't know who she is. Rin is afraid of what she could become, and doesn't realize the greatness of the gifts she has been given. I found myself identifying with Rin as I read this book because she reminded me of myself. One of Shannon Hale's greatest talents as a writer is to be able to create characters who the readers can identify with as if they were themselves, and that's something to be admired in an author. When Rin is afraid of herself and when she tries to be like other people to feel more right inside, I feel her pain. 

     Forest Born was written incredibly well. Particularly captivating to me was Rin's voice as a narrator. Growing up in a rustic, backwoods family who have a blunt, down-to-earth way of speaking, Rin describes things in a way that always harks back to her roots. She is a character who is more strongly rooted in her family than even she realizes, and it's those roots that make her strong. And once she finds the balance in her gifts, Rin can find peace and contentment within herself, something that she has been missing. 

     Its hard for me to describe how much I love Forest Born. As I said, its my favorite of The Books of Bayern series. I suppose I identify with it so much right now because of where I am as a person, but no matter what age you are it's still a rewarding, compelling story. Also, like all the other books in this series, it can stand alone, although it's a bit easier to understand if you've read the other books first. And since they're all worth reading, why not?

Link to author website: http://www.squeetus.com/stage/main.html