I will preface this by saying I did not actually finish The Forsaken King by Penelope Barsetti but I read like, 85% and it was like so long so I feel like I put in the hours to at least give it some of a review. I was feeling in the mood for some dark fantasy as the book I read before this one just ended up falling flat so I thought this might fit the bill. TW: there is reference to non-consensual and it is threatened against a character which is sort of where this book lost me. It could have been really interesting, princess character grows up not knowing that her wealth comes from her fathers cruel and violent take over and is then kidnaped by the son of the man her father deposed but honestly this just skirts all the interesting possibilities for dramatics. The main character is tough, until it isn’t useful to the plot and she is smart, until it isn’t useful to the plot, and she holds her own, until it isn’t useful to the plot, and honestly the plot was worse off for it. The point that really lost me the worst though was when the main character makes a very valid comparison between the male main character and her father and he storms off, never apologizes for it and just fucks her instead and calls her baby (can fantasy novels stop using baby I don’t know why does this shit throw me out of it so much but it does). Like her dad did some majorly fucked up stuff, like real bad, but not like the main male character hasn’t also done shitty stuff, it’s only because the female main character is into it that it isn’t worse. Uncountable baffling decisions.