4.14 AVERAGE


Super stereotypical fantasy, but not in a bad way at all. Very enjoyable!

Reading this book, I felt like I was learning about the origins of the genre. I loved the epic vibe it gave me. Since the book has this older writing style, and being English my second language, I also had to look up for some words, but I enjoyed the reading anyway after picking up the pace.

The main defects of this book can be condensed in three points:
- The longest digression in history: really, I was around 30% through the book (percentage given by my kindle), and I started the book again because I thought I missed the point where the timelines joined again. Spoiler: it happened around 43%
- When did that love story happen? Again, I'm not sure it's a language gap, but one moment she was dying, the moment after she was very, very close with Luthen. And realized in that same moment she also loves Tor. It was confusing.
- Arein has quite some judgment defects, apparently the only reason she didn't die from them is because she had this other great destiny to fulfill.

So, why giving it this high a rating?
Because I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT I STILL LOVED READING ALL OF IT. I actually got a bit emotional reading how she would treasure both loves, which were different and both true. That very very long digression was an interesting story in itself, and as it finally closed I still gasped. I constantly disagreed with Aerin's stubbornness, still cheered for her while she healed (although, I'm quite sure she should have been quite old at the end of the book by all the time she had to wait to be able to move on to the next step in her glorious journey).

In the end, it's a book you love in its defects.
adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous funny lighthearted relaxing medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous challenging inspiring medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Classic Robin McKinley. Quiet, fierce, atmospheric.

This was on track to being five stars, until the second half of the book just veered way out there.

SpoilerAfter building up to be a classic "awkward unpopular girl grows up and wins admiration and respect through bravery and heroic deeds" tale for 100 pages, suddenly in part 2 all is abandoned and this became a weirder "awkward girl goes on metaphysical journey to discover her true destiny and falls in love with someone we've never seen before".


I'm hoping that ham handed second half was written in to explain stuff from The Blue Sword, otherwise I'll be even more disappointed.

Hero's Journey with female protagonist. Inevitably, the power structure in the book remains a patriarchal monarchy in spite of the feats of the female heroine. But then, this is a common feature of fantasy. Otherwise, the book is engrossing and is a cut above the rest.

Went out of my usual reading preferences and sadly not too surprised that I didn't find it as good as others have. This was definitely not a bad story, just not to my liking. As expected the writing and the story are both good just not great, once again, to me anyway. McKinley remains a great author, I'll just be more picky in the future as to which ones I read.
rc from NetGalley

I bought 'The Hero and the Crown' to read on our beach trip this summer. I fell in love with it and thought it was great...until the last 3/4. Maybe it was the beach cocktails but it got very confusing for me. So her "great battle" with her uncle took her years, okay. Then her new boyfriend has to take her back to the current time to help fight the evil Northerners. Soooo, why didn't he take her back to the beginning of the fight, to save her dad? And why didn't boyfriend go fight Uncle with her instead of her doing it alone? He seemed to talk smack about Tor, but no doubt Tor would have helped wage battle with her against her uncle, while boyfriend was too scared!
The last couple of chapters wrapped it up okay. But there was definitely a section in the middle that seemed to be a different book.