On her 19th birthday Kelsea Glynn must begin her journey to take her throne from her uncle, who ruled as regent while she was underage, and to rule the Tearling, yet she is being hunted during her journey to the castle and even as she gets crowned, the danger is greater than ever, not just for Kelsea, but for her whole kingdom.
"The future was only disasters of the past, waiting to happen anew."
I had high expectations when I started this book and only heard fantastic things about it, so obviously I thought this was gonna be this amazing and epic fantasy story. Well, guess what? It's not. It's soo freaking boring. I basically had to force myself to pick it up so I could finally finish it. What makes it even more tiring is the fact that the chapters are about 40 pages each, which is at least for me way too long. I didn't like the plot because nothing is really happening or repeating all the time, yet this book is still 488 f*cking pages long. Why? Definitely partly because of the writing, which would be actually okay, if it wasn't for all the unnecessary and stupid descriptions. So. Many. F*cking. Descriptions. Also, why do I have to read 5 times about how the main character is nearly getting killed? Once or twice is completely sufficient. Erika Johansen also tried to add in some mystery by not revealing details about her mother or who her father is to the main character, but rather letting here find out one by one. Anyway, it didn't work because I just didn't care and didn't mind at all if the answers to these mysteries are revealed or not. The worldbuilding is even worse, it just doesn't make any f*cking sense. First of all, this isn't even a fantasy world, but actually a dystopian version of earth. At least I think so? Apparently some dude wanted to create an utopia, but their ships crashed so they don't have any kind of technology any more. This is basically everything we're told about the history of the country. And this happened at least half a century from now, since people only used e-books, so the technology was highly developed, yet their ships crashed? How? Why didn't they use a plane? Did he only take extremely dumb people with him, instead of doctors and scientists, or how does it come they weren't able to invent anything again? Jeez, even the medieval Europeans had more inventions, since they were at least able to print books. And which moron saved birth control pills instead of something that'd help them figure out how to invent electricity again or at least antibiotics? Usually a big part of a fantasy novel should be some kind of magic, but the only magical elements were a queen who couldn't be bothered to use her powers, a completely useless seer and a stone that only does something if it serves the plot. Again, this doesn't make any sense. Another thing that bothered me so much was this ridiculously high focus on looks. Who cares how someone who appears for five pages looks like? At first I actually really liked that the main character wasn't extremely gorgeous, but only rather plain and isn't that skinny either, until she started to complain all the damn time. What the f*ck is wrong with looking plain? What is wrong with not looking super skinny? What is wrong with having curves? She is even jealous of a woman's beauty, yet only because of that beautiful face and body she's been raped and abused for years. How can you envy the reason for something so horrible? In general, why are people judged so much based on what they look like in this book? Why is being "ugly" seen as such a bad crime by the main character?
The characters in general are okay, but in no way good or even extraordinary. While I did dislike, sometimes even loathe the main character, I just couldn't find the motivation to even care about the others or their fates. Kelsea Glynn, the main character, just made me so mad. How can somebody be so arrogant and incompetent at the same time? So confident yet so bad at commanding or gaining respect? She's been prepared her whole life for ruling, but the very first freaking decision she makes dooms her whole country. She's so stupid and acts like a child all the time despite being 19 years old, and even thinks her behavior is mature, when all she does is based on emotions like anger instead of thinking. I mean, she rather saves books than does anything for the defense of her country and people. Sure, I love books as well, but I'd never sacrifice people's lives for it, especially not as their queen. She doesn't understand betrayal and just trusts the very first dude she meets and depends way too much on him. She also just falls in love with the first handsome guy who seems to be about her age, even though he's an a**hole and harms her kingdom. Another thing that bothered me so much is how rude she is to everybody who disagrees with her and actually thinks this is the fitting behavior for a queen. I genuinely can't even be bothered right now to write more about some minor characters, and honestly, there's not even much to say anyway because there's a huge focus on Kelsea and on Kelsea only. However, that little bit of what we see of the Queensguard just shows how completely incompetent its members are. They're supposed to bring her to the castle, she gets kidnapped; they're supposed to protect her, she nearly gets killed several times; they're supposed to be trusted, one of them betrays her; they're supposed to obey, they don't; what's even the point if they're just failing all the time?
On the back of the book, it gets compared to The hunger games and A song of ice and fire and that just makes me even angrier, because it's an insult for two fantastic book series, since not just their plots, but also the worldbuilding, writing and the characters are infinite times better. I probably will watch the movie adaptation anyway, because Emma Watson is going to star in it and she's amazing (let's just ignore the fact that the incredibly beautiful Emma Watson is gonna portray the plain, nearly ugly Kelsea Glynn), but I hope they'll change as much as possible from the book.
Rating: 2/5 ✹
I hope you enjoyed this review even though I did get a bit angry writing this and swore more than I wanted to. Have a lovely day!
Leah
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