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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Wow okay. This is the first book in a long time I haven't fully enjoyed the whole book. It has everything a good fantasy needs. A murder, a good lie, a dysfunctional family, magic, two siblings on opposite sides, a false war, and an epic love separated by putting others first.
I didn't like any of the characters. At all. I couldnt connect with any of them, they are well fleshed out, had different qualities, and one was not like the other. But I just didn't like any of them at the start, until the middle, when I actually felt like I could connect with them and understand them and like them.
This book moved too slowly for me, and sometimes it moved too quickly and I had to go back and read it all over again. I was bored reading this, my interest wasnt piqued until around chapter 24. It took far too long for this book to get interesting. The plot is good, the characters are too. But I just couldnt love this book the way I wanted too.
But once I got to actually enjoy what I was reading the plot flowed better and I started liking the characters. It just sucks it to so long.
The ending of the book was great, absolutely amazing. I wished the entire book was as good as the ending was. I wasn't actually expecting it to end the way it did, and was truly surprised by some aspects. But I really loved it.
In saying this I don't want to put anyone off reading this book. It truly is a great book it just awhile for me to be interested.
I didn't like any of the characters. At all. I couldnt connect with any of them, they are well fleshed out, had different qualities, and one was not like the other. But I just didn't like any of them at the start, until the middle, when I actually felt like I could connect with them and understand them and like them.
This book moved too slowly for me, and sometimes it moved too quickly and I had to go back and read it all over again. I was bored reading this, my interest wasnt piqued until around chapter 24. It took far too long for this book to get interesting. The plot is good, the characters are too. But I just couldnt love this book the way I wanted too.
But once I got to actually enjoy what I was reading the plot flowed better and I started liking the characters. It just sucks it to so long.
The ending of the book was great, absolutely amazing. I wished the entire book was as good as the ending was. I wasn't actually expecting it to end the way it did, and was truly surprised by some aspects. But I really loved it.
In saying this I don't want to put anyone off reading this book. It truly is a great book it just awhile for me to be interested.
DNFing. I'm super disappointed. This sounded perfect for me but I just can't get into it.
If you read it I hope you enjoy it.
If you read it I hope you enjoy it.
The Girl King is a YA fantasy about two sisters who find themselves on opposite sides of a war for the throne. It has all the ingredients for a fantastic book: exiled royal, found magic, humans that turn into wolves, lost societies, and politics. However, very few of these ingredients were carried out to their full potential, making the book feel hollow and ultimately mediocre. The characters were fascinating, but none of them were given any sort of development from start to finish. The magic system felt confusing, the politics dry.
Moreover, I don’t know if this was intentional, but there were startling similarities to A Song of Ice & Fire, mainly Arya and Sansa’s characters. Min might as well be Sansa, Lu might be Arya. There’s a cruel, stubborn, bratty prince (Joffrey), and a queen who loves nothing more than power and occasionally her children (Cersei). The plot involves a royal who is forced into exile, who must raise an army of outsiders to invade and win back the throne (Daenerys), and one of the main magic systems involves people turning into animals (warging). Some scenes felt familiar too. There were way too many similarities for me to keep ignoring them.
I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Moreover, I don’t know if this was intentional, but there were startling similarities to A Song of Ice & Fire, mainly Arya and Sansa’s characters. Min might as well be Sansa, Lu might be Arya. There’s a cruel, stubborn, bratty prince (Joffrey), and a queen who loves nothing more than power and occasionally her children (Cersei). The plot involves a royal who is forced into exile, who must raise an army of outsiders to invade and win back the throne (Daenerys), and one of the main magic systems involves people turning into animals (warging). Some scenes felt familiar too. There were way too many similarities for me to keep ignoring them.
I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
This was a really good fantasy debut! I liked Minyi's character best, though, and she gets the least time on the page of any of the protagonists. I would have liked to have more balance between the two sisters' storylines, because their relationship could have gone really interesting places if it had been the main focus. I hope the sequel will have more of that!
TWs for attempted rape, domestic violence, emotional abuse/manipulation, violence, and on-page death.
This was the first book I finished in 2019 and I think my expectations were too high, because I ended up being disappointed. The plot wasn't as cohesive as it could have been and elements of the world-building seemed to be dropped in at random more than halfway through the story, rather than introduced in the beginning. Pacing was also an issue, and Nok was the only character I felt invested in toward the final chapters of the book. There's an attempted rape scene that I had issues with because it really didn't need to be there. At all. It added nothing to the plot, and was never mentioned again by any of the characters afterwards, or challenged in any way. It also paints the only potentially queer character in the novel as a predator and abuser.
Having said all that, the book did some things really well. The Asian-inspired folklore was rich and enjoyable, and I really liked the fact that there was an Asian-based naming system for all characters, as it served to deepen the world-building. The narrative itself had moments of excellence, particularly the descriptions of the palace and colours. On the whole, the concept for this book had a lot of potential, but the execution wasn't great.
This was the first book I finished in 2019 and I think my expectations were too high, because I ended up being disappointed. The plot wasn't as cohesive as it could have been and elements of the world-building seemed to be dropped in at random more than halfway through the story, rather than introduced in the beginning. Pacing was also an issue, and Nok was the only character I felt invested in toward the final chapters of the book. There's an attempted rape scene that I had issues with because it really didn't need to be there. At all. It added nothing to the plot, and was never mentioned again by any of the characters afterwards, or challenged in any way. It also paints the only potentially queer character in the novel as a predator and abuser.
Having said all that, the book did some things really well. The Asian-inspired folklore was rich and enjoyable, and I really liked the fact that there was an Asian-based naming system for all characters, as it served to deepen the world-building. The narrative itself had moments of excellence, particularly the descriptions of the palace and colours. On the whole, the concept for this book had a lot of potential, but the execution wasn't great.
I received a free copy of this through NetGalley in return for an honest review
I so wanted to love this book. It sounded so good and the characters and premise interested me.
But I got so bored.
I found myself skimming it more and more as I got near the end and I'm not sure why. The plot was interesting or not but the language could get repetitive and something about it felt so slow yet the romance was too fast. There was nothing overtly wrong with it but...it just wasn't for me sadly.
I so wanted to love this book. It sounded so good and the characters and premise interested me.
But I got so bored.
I found myself skimming it more and more as I got near the end and I'm not sure why. The plot was interesting or not but the language could get repetitive and something about it felt so slow yet the romance was too fast. There was nothing overtly wrong with it but...it just wasn't for me sadly.
A brilliant introduction to the series that I really enjoyed. Our main characters are interesting, although I found them to be irritating in their own ways - I wish MIn had started to develop a lot sooner and had more of a chance to change rather than the sudden character development that happens. I also felt that the romance was rushed, it needed time to develop and there were opportunities later in the story for this to happen. All in all though, this is a good book with a solid start to the series. I am invested enough in the characters to want to get to the rest of the series and I cant wait to see how this all develops.
"Why did the Gods make you like this? Just to torment me?"
I'd been eyeing this book up since last year when the first lot of proofs were going out but I emailed late 2018 and I was lucky enough to have received a full cover copy of this book and be on the blog tour and it was one of my most anticipated reads of January! So this may be cliché for me to say but I've honestly not read a book like this before and it's been such a lovely change of pace and style! I will admit that I felt that a couple of the chapters dragged on a little bit but they always reeled you back in with a twist!
The book was done from three different points of view, the two sisters, Lu and Min and also Nok who actually knows the sisters from when they were all younger. At the beginning I did get a little bit confused with the chapters of which sister we were viewing from as it did seem to switch but I did get into the swing of things a bit more easily after the first few chapters.
My favourite character in this book was Nok, he is such an interesting character and I absolutely love the way that he can shapeshift as well, I really felt more connected with Nok throughout this book than the other two. I did find Lu a bit mean at the beginning of the book but I grew to like her more throughout it and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Min yet, I think I'm going to need to read book two before forming an opinion about her.
This book was just filled with twists and turns which just kept you hooked and wanting more, it was such a fantastic read, I was forever saying to myself 'Just read one more chapter before bed' then it's been almost 60 pages and I've not realised, I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to wait until 2020 to read the second book in the series?!
I was originally going to give this book 4.5 stars but when I was writing this review I was just gushing to myself about how much I enjoyed it and just had to bump it up to the full five stars I just enjoyed it so much, I loved the characters, the world building, the twists and turns and I just really enjoyed it if you couldn't tell! I highly recommend reading this so if you haven't bought yourself a copy yet, you should!
"Why can't you see you've lost?"
"In order for me to lose, you have to win. And you're never, ever going to win. It's not in your nature.