”No one really wishes to be Queen.”

DNF @52%

FORMAT READ: Audiobook
THE BASIC PLOT:
Three Queens are brought up separately to kill each other and fight for the throne when they reach 16. They all have different kinds of “gifts”.

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OVERALL THOUGHTS: 1.5

At least I tried guys...

I tried.

I read this book to feed my curiosity and there is a chance I might try this again in the future but don't hold me to that.

There are so many mixed reviews about this book and it was the main reason that I was so tentative about picking this up. But the premise still sounded so interesting and I just needed to know for myself… and you know what… it was not the best.

I know I said I was liking this at first but…

Everything was very two-dimensional (world building, characters, plot, everything lol)

This is a VERY slow paced book and was more focused on the politics between the different groups/kingdoms (?). But then it's like the book forgot that and then decided they actually wanted to focus on the characters but at that point they were just shoving characters to your face. It was also a bit confusing because there were so many characters introduced. Which I think might be a reason that people end up putting down the book.

My opinion is, if you are going into this book, don’t put your expectations too high. And also, don’t expect dark and fighting-to-the-death kind of things, because you definitely won’t be getting that.

It’s more like a very complicated love triangle… square… that I’m sure will become more complicated.

PLOT: ★★☆☆☆
To be honest… there really wasn’t anything happening…

Or the POVs were jumping too much for me to follow well and I didn’t care what was happening.

It does kind of pick up after the 40%-50% mark but it still lost me.

I also thought that the Queens were raised very separately but their worlds were actually really close to crossing?? I expected them to be at each other's throats after not seeing each other for so long but... that didn't happen up to the point that I read. I didn't finish the book but it's safe to say that the only people I cared about were Mirabella and Jules... but something happened in the story that annoyed me so much that I put this book down and said I was done.

I surprised myself by liking the politics that was going on at some points. I also really liked reading from each of the Queen’s (even though Jules took up most of Arsinoe's) point of views and knowing their thoughts as they were very different. But they barely used their powers? which I thought was weird considering the premise. I was really looking forward to how that played out with the politics and that they had to kill each other.

I thought that they were raised to hate and kill each other... that didn't really happen.

There was something that happened in the plot that just happened out of nowhere that just made me like ?!?!?!?!?!? and that was my breaking point and ultimately made me DNF this book.

WRITING STYLE: ★★☆☆☆
1. there was something about the way everything flowed that bothered me
2. we barely got to see them use their powers, I hated the magic system I'm sorry

WORLD BUILDING: ★☆☆☆☆
Was there any world-buidling? lol.

There were so many holes and so many things were missing. This was a very big problem for me. I don’t have the energy to explain it but it was just not the best for me.

CHARACTERS: ★☆☆☆
This was probably the biggest reason why I wanted to put down this book. The characters were far from flushed out and I thought they were flat. I’m not even going to be talking about the side characters because there are way too many of those and I barely cared for them. And what’s up with Jules taking most of Arsinoe’s POVs?? I did like Jules but I found that weird.

A lot of the characters did a lot of things that just seemed so childish and certain decisions of theirs put me off. I was so unattached from the characters :’( even though I liked reading from their POVs it was so hard for me to relate to them and care.

ALSO! She kept using the characters’ first names?? that I had a hard time keeping track of who was who. We didn't get a lot of description.

There were certain parts that made me giddy but I couldn’t hide from the fact that there was zero to no build up with the relationships. It all just jumps at you and expects you to care kind of things. Did I mention that there's insta-love? and that this is probably the worst depiction of insta-love there is? Well, I said it and remember when I said that there was something that happened that ultimately made me put down the book? this is a big part of it. It's like I woke up and told myself that there are better insta-love relationships out there. Because I stopped caring about the plot at about 15% of the book and just wanted to know more about the characters. That was a huge let down.

THEMES: ★☆☆☆☆
It was also not as dark I thought it would be. It did not have the atmosphere I was looking for. After reading Nevernight I was looking for a dark read.. and sadly, this was not it.

PACING: ★★★☆☆
As I said, it was slow paced, but it was not exactly my biggest problem with the book. I actually thought it was very fitting for what I thought the plot was going to be.

PAGE TURNER: ★★★★☆
I was intrigued at some point, okay.


not my best review and there are other reviews out there that may have conveyed my feelings better but I did not feel the need to continue this book and I'm just going to move on.