Reviews - The Ragpicker King

1.51k reviews for:

The Ragpicker King

Cassandra Clare

4.39 AVERAGE

katiepolich's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

hefflefflelump's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

hex_girl_13's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

akhawaja's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

It was good, but not much happened in the book at all. Lots of conversations between characters, and maybe it was meant to be interesting from a political intrigue standpoint, but it never quite got to that point. Lin and Kel are great people, but they don’t really make interesting frontmen—they’re too good, too loyal, their flaws are that they care too much and hide how they really feel to protect others. The story really picked up in the final hundred pages, though. I do like how Cassandra Clare writes, and her descriptions and the extensive cast of characters really enrich the book, but there wasn’t enough plot or character depth to go beyond a surface-level story.

Maybe Lin and Kel would be interesting if they were confronted with dueling dragons and high stakes battles every other chapter, but instead, Lin goes around on her rounds and visits the palace and goes to parties, and Kel goes around the city and eavesdrops on people and goes to parties, too. Too many nice parties in a series makes them less interesting! Conor is the only truly fascinating character—he feels so much all the time, and he is so obviously being pulled to the point of breaking by his competing impulses.

Kel is so close to being interesting—if he was maybe a little bitter, or if he actually did feel envious or resentful of the palace, or if he acted like the noble he has been playing for over a decade instead of being so nice…maybe that would’ve made him more flawed, darker, more human. I do like his undying loyalty to Conor, and because that’s such a core part of his personality, I think it’s fine for him to feel that. But give him an uglier emotion too!

ab_c_16's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Morally gray characters are hard to write, and I get that. (Maybe it would have been better if Conor had some chapters in his POV.) But I just have a really hard time liking him, and the whole plot hinges on his redemption…maybe things will be better in the third book? I am hoping, because I greatly enjoy the world-building and the two MC’s so much.

tdawgg07's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

tinsica's review against another edition

4.0

mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

There are quite a few issues with this book, as touched on by other reviews, however I didn’t find that these detracted from my enjoyment of the book and thought it was better than the first