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issianne's review against another edition
4.0
3.5. This book was interesting in the way that there's not much plot. It's more of a coming-of-age for Kelsea as she becomes the Queen of the Tearling. She learns more and more about the history of her kingdom and learns to trust the men in her Queen's Guard. She also stops human trafficking she didn't know about until very recently. And that's about all that happens in this book. I thought it was masterfully written and evocative but also there wasn't much to the story. That being said, I want to read the rest of the series to get a sense of what this book has created a stepping stone for.
luminous's review against another edition
5.0
Refreshing! Easy world to get into, well-drawn characters, some good mysteries, a great protagonist. Going to continue the trilogy right away. Such a satisfying story. Tackles really dark themes and neither sugarcoats them nor exploits them. Best fantasy I've read so far this year, and maybe in the past couple years.
Did I mention the narration is out of this world? Listened at 1.25 speed.
Did I mention the narration is out of this world? Listened at 1.25 speed.
booktallie's review
4.0
As an intriguing and epic debut novel, The Queen of the Tearling, Erika Johansen creates a lavish, terrifying and somehow beautiful world, combining tones of historical fantasy and dystopia altogether. Erika Johansen illuminates our minds and imagination with tales of royalty, magic and war. The Queen of the Tearling is a riveting tale of suspense, adventure, mystery, and political aguish.
Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn is the heir to the throne of the Tearling, a peaceful kingdom on some kind of secondary world that refugees from Earth have settled somehow, also known as “the crossing”. (They have The Hobbit and the Bible, but whether they came in spaceships, or some other kind of vessel is unclear.) Kelsea has spent her entire childhood hidden away in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, raised by two foster parents, Carlin and Barty, because her mother is dead and no one seems to know where or who her father is.
But now that Kelsea has turned 19, she's ready to take the throne. And as the novel begins, a group of men arrive to take her to the “Keep” in New London, the capital, so she can be crowned. But her evil uncle, the Regent, has hired lots of assassins to kill her before she can ever sit on the throne, so they have to fight their way to the city. Plus there's a sexy thief guy, the Fetch, who's basically Dread Pirate Roberts and Robin Hood mixed into one. But Kelsea soon realizes that her foster parents didn't tell her how bad things had gotten in her kingdom, because of an oath they swore to her mother. Turns out the Tearling lost a war with the neighboring kingdom, Mortmesne, who is ruled by an evil sorceress Queen possessing dark magic. As a result of this defeat, the Tearlings have to send a ton of slaves to the Mort every year in order to keep the contract of peace and not aggravate a new war. Kelsea is determined to put a stop to these human tributes, but she has to confront deep-rooted interests in her own kingdom, and the threat of a new war with the Mort. Oh, and the Church is in cahoots with the slavers too.
Johansen avoids describing the character’s personalities outright, showing them through their actions. Johansen also makes little remarks of the character’s appearance, leaving us to imagination most of what each character would be like. Though with the flaws in the author’s detailing of characters it does not intrude on our relationship with each of them, finding a connection is easy to do. (Cheer for the good, Boo for the bad)
Johansen takes this book in a very dark direction at times, with slavery and political corruption and abuse. (This is not a YA novel. There is vulgar language and sexual content that may not be appropriated for all) But Johansen could have giving a more "realistic" take on this material, convening the struggles that Kelsea would have to deal with to change the situation of her country, that's existed for decades, and facing real setbacks. We do hear about a lot of terrible atrocities, mostly second hand, and there's the ever-present threat of war, with pervasive rape and slaughter.
But The Queen of the Tearing is basically a fairytale, with some disturbing content in the mix. A lot of the fun of this book is in seeing Kelsea triumph over great odds, and slowly winning everybody's love and respect. At first, the men who come to fetch her from that cottage in the middle of nowhere see her as a silly young girl who can't do anything, so a lot of the book is about her proving to them and everybody else that she's really dedicated and wise beyond her years. As the book goes along, Kelsea gets magic powers to go along with her general tendency to say or do the right thing in almost every situation. Sometimes you just want to read about someone who rights wrongs and makes the world a better place. Johansen has created a wonderful story of overcoming the odds and defeating enemies no matter how great.
The sequel to The Queen of the Tearling comes out this upcoming June, and I for one can’t wait.
Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn is the heir to the throne of the Tearling, a peaceful kingdom on some kind of secondary world that refugees from Earth have settled somehow, also known as “the crossing”. (They have The Hobbit and the Bible, but whether they came in spaceships, or some other kind of vessel is unclear.) Kelsea has spent her entire childhood hidden away in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, raised by two foster parents, Carlin and Barty, because her mother is dead and no one seems to know where or who her father is.
But now that Kelsea has turned 19, she's ready to take the throne. And as the novel begins, a group of men arrive to take her to the “Keep” in New London, the capital, so she can be crowned. But her evil uncle, the Regent, has hired lots of assassins to kill her before she can ever sit on the throne, so they have to fight their way to the city. Plus there's a sexy thief guy, the Fetch, who's basically Dread Pirate Roberts and Robin Hood mixed into one. But Kelsea soon realizes that her foster parents didn't tell her how bad things had gotten in her kingdom, because of an oath they swore to her mother. Turns out the Tearling lost a war with the neighboring kingdom, Mortmesne, who is ruled by an evil sorceress Queen possessing dark magic. As a result of this defeat, the Tearlings have to send a ton of slaves to the Mort every year in order to keep the contract of peace and not aggravate a new war. Kelsea is determined to put a stop to these human tributes, but she has to confront deep-rooted interests in her own kingdom, and the threat of a new war with the Mort. Oh, and the Church is in cahoots with the slavers too.
Johansen avoids describing the character’s personalities outright, showing them through their actions. Johansen also makes little remarks of the character’s appearance, leaving us to imagination most of what each character would be like. Though with the flaws in the author’s detailing of characters it does not intrude on our relationship with each of them, finding a connection is easy to do. (Cheer for the good, Boo for the bad)
Johansen takes this book in a very dark direction at times, with slavery and political corruption and abuse. (This is not a YA novel. There is vulgar language and sexual content that may not be appropriated for all) But Johansen could have giving a more "realistic" take on this material, convening the struggles that Kelsea would have to deal with to change the situation of her country, that's existed for decades, and facing real setbacks. We do hear about a lot of terrible atrocities, mostly second hand, and there's the ever-present threat of war, with pervasive rape and slaughter.
But The Queen of the Tearing is basically a fairytale, with some disturbing content in the mix. A lot of the fun of this book is in seeing Kelsea triumph over great odds, and slowly winning everybody's love and respect. At first, the men who come to fetch her from that cottage in the middle of nowhere see her as a silly young girl who can't do anything, so a lot of the book is about her proving to them and everybody else that she's really dedicated and wise beyond her years. As the book goes along, Kelsea gets magic powers to go along with her general tendency to say or do the right thing in almost every situation. Sometimes you just want to read about someone who rights wrongs and makes the world a better place. Johansen has created a wonderful story of overcoming the odds and defeating enemies no matter how great.
The sequel to The Queen of the Tearling comes out this upcoming June, and I for one can’t wait.
chazbats's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
laurasauras's review
5.0
One of the things that stood out about this book was the subtle way that they it gave out information on the world. The main character is just stepping out of her exile for the first time and is consciously applying years of studying the kingdom in books to seeing it herself. While I don't compare the book itself to Game of Thrones, it certainly has a Khaleesi vibe in that she is a young queen, and she is making radical changes to her kingdom, that she is both uncertain and unwavering in. Yes, a contradiction, but an actually plausible one. She knows that her decisions must be unquestioned, and so she must give every appearance of confidence, but of course no one can make a decision without doubting it, especially if it affects so many other people.
I really enjoyed it, and got so thouroughly swept away in it I was legitimately shocked when the book ended. I really wanted it to keep going! Can't wait for the next book.
I really enjoyed it, and got so thouroughly swept away in it I was legitimately shocked when the book ended. I really wanted it to keep going! Can't wait for the next book.
daphelba's review
3.0
Because: Emma Watson
Still don't know if the rumors are true, but if Emma Watson is signing on for the movie version before a book is even widely available...I'm interested.
I enjoy having a face in mind while adventuring with my characters and I loved the Harry Potter books that much more after being gifted real-life embodiments. However, the descriptions of the Glynn Queen as "plain", "not slender", and otherwise completely unassuming, do not allow for visions of the exquisite choice for her Hollywood counterpart. E-Dub ain't no schlub.
It felt as if it took forever for me to finish. (It was probably only a week.) I was not consciously aware that it was difficult to get through, but assumed it was taking longer because I read before bed and experienced unusual sleepiness every single time opened this book. After reading some other reviews, I wonder if Queen of the Tearling is a natural sedative.
I read this book to the end and I know I'm going to read the next, but I'm not left without complaints:
One of my biggest frustrations with this book and so many others in recent years is that publishing companies or authors want multiple-book deals. A way to get this is by stretching stories that could easily be one book on out into three or more.
Q-ofthe-T comes from an author who loves description and must have taken a class or two on how to describe-the-shit out of some stuff. She does it well most of the time, but it is also exasperating when I stop to imagine two more books of this. Where is the STORY?!
If you're in for the Trilogy, give it a go. If you're going to base your commitment off of the first book, don't bother. See the movie instead. :)
Still don't know if the rumors are true, but if Emma Watson is signing on for the movie version before a book is even widely available...I'm interested.
I enjoy having a face in mind while adventuring with my characters and I loved the Harry Potter books that much more after being gifted real-life embodiments. However, the descriptions of the Glynn Queen as "plain", "not slender", and otherwise completely unassuming, do not allow for visions of the exquisite choice for her Hollywood counterpart. E-Dub ain't no schlub.
It felt as if it took forever for me to finish. (It was probably only a week.) I was not consciously aware that it was difficult to get through, but assumed it was taking longer because I read before bed and experienced unusual sleepiness every single time opened this book. After reading some other reviews, I wonder if Queen of the Tearling is a natural sedative.
I read this book to the end and I know I'm going to read the next, but I'm not left without complaints:
Q-ofthe-T is not an amazing book. Its characters are flawed, and not only in the way that all humans are and so page-peeps must be in order to be relateable. The Queen's Guard, and especially their Commander, are written to be remarkably cunning and loyal, but they fumble endlessly and make terrible decisions for the safety of their Majesty. The Majesty herself, waltzes into towns and rooms with no hesitancy in regard for the bigger picture, making declarations and proclamations that put herself and her people in danger. She is snide and snickery, and even where it's deserved it's not cute. Perhaps this is in an effort to show how she will grow and mature over time.
One of my biggest frustrations with this book and so many others in recent years is that publishing companies or authors want multiple-book deals. A way to get this is by stretching stories that could easily be one book on out into three or more.
Q-ofthe-T comes from an author who loves description and must have taken a class or two on how to describe-the-shit out of some stuff. She does it well most of the time, but it is also exasperating when I stop to imagine two more books of this. Where is the STORY?!
Like other reviewers have grumbled, there's a lot of going-to-places in this book, and not much of now-we're-here. I get it, there's a journey, there has to be to tell Kelsea's story, but OMG as a stand-alone book there is very little worth reading here. The climax is not very...climaxical(?)
And like others have said, there seems to be quite a bit of copy-cat material here, but maybe that will play out in the long run?Spoiler
Maybe there will be some connection to the names of places being similar to those in literature, and the ultimate destruction of literature on the whole after the mysterious "Crossing"?
I am intrigued by the history of the Crossing, but I'm not sure we're ever going to learn more. It may have been the author's lazy way of describing the brush-strokes that created this landscape we are expected to appreciate.
As a writer of futuristic dystopian fiction, though, I can acknowledge that it is really difficult to tell the story of how it all went to shit after it all went to shit. Clearly, when things go to shit, people die, books get destroyed, the winners rewrite history, and humans steadily rebuild the world only to tear it down again. Artifacts crumble or get lost and the only stories that get handed down are spoken-word in an atrocious game of 'telephone'. If an author explains all the history away it's 1. Unrealistic and 2. Too un-mysterious.
If you're in for the Trilogy, give it a go. If you're going to base your commitment off of the first book, don't bother. See the movie instead. :)
kwagner's review against another edition
4.0
I didn’t know how to feel about this book until I was over halfway through and couldn’t stop thinking about it. It is not for the weak of stomach as it holds no details on the horrid demise of the world. I genuinely loved all the characters and am eager to read the next one.
user_906242's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75