I picked this book up because of the hype surrounding it and I'm very glad for it. The characters were captivating, the world was fascinating, and the plot was well executed, if a bit hunger games-esque in several places. But I did have 2 glaring problems:
1. The romance. It felt unnecessary in all 3 cases, not to mention the fact that the love triangle felt shoehorned in.
2. The plot took entirely too long to take off, with a slow build up that lasted for the grand mojority of the book. The blurb made it seem like this would be a competition from the very beginning, when that only happened 90% into the book.
I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel, though, and I hope to see more of the three queens actually fighting for something (particularly Katherine, she's definitely my favourite so far).