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ravensandlace's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
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I did it! I finally read my oldest book on my Goodreads account. This book has survived a few purges from when I added it in 2016. Yeah, you read that right. I added this book in 2016, back when I was a young and learning the ways of Goodreads, not knowing it would consume my life. I decided one day that I was going to try and read books on my tbr because it really needed to happen. And I feel so great about it! It was so refreshing to see my tbr go down by one book. I was so invigorated by my success that I requested a loan for the second book that has been on my Goodreads. Nothing can stop me now.
On to the actual review. I enjoyed this book but man, it was about 200 pages too long. This was a monster book coming in at over 500 pages. It just seemed a little excessive to me. When I love a book, 500 pages in nothing but since I didn’t quite love this book, it just started to drag and drag. But there were things I enjoyed about the book even if the length was way too long. .
I enjoyed seeing the inner workings of the court through the eyes of a fool. This is the first time I’ve read a book through the eyes of the fool. It makes me want to read about the court through the eyes of Will Somers. They tend to see more than most. It was also interesting to see spying in the court. It's been a while since I have read a good book about spies. I’m looking at you, Red Sparrow.
As for the main character, Hannah, I liked being in her POV. It helped that it was in first person. It made it a little more personal. She had tremendous character growth; something I absolutely love. She grew from an almost spoiled girl with an attitude problem to a young woman, ready to take on responsibility. And you all know that I am a sucker for character growth. But she really did like to repeat herself over and over again. She couldn’t decide what she wanted to do and she really played a dangerous game, making people mad with her comments. You can’t just say what you want at court. That’s how you die.
Overall, I did enjoy the book despite my less than stellar review. I gave it 3 (three) stars simply because the length was too much. It could have been 200 pages less and it would have still been a good book and I would have rated it at least 4 (four) stars. Regardless, I am so glad I read it and I can’t wait to finish this series after starting it so many years ago.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Gore, Rape, Confinement, Infidelity, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Violence, War, Adult/minor relationship, Infertility, Bullying, Grief, Incest, Medical trauma, Medical content, Miscarriage, Misogyny, and Religious bigotry
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