Reviews with content warning for Death - Castelos em seus ossos

I really enjoyed this. The premise is just the best. I read this after stardust in their veins, but it was still amazing. The Empress is just a villian I love to hate while I love every one of the triplets. I'm a bit annoyed that

the Empress's plan just had her daughters acting as sacrifices as opposed to spies/integral parts of her plan as well. That bit is pretty horrifying. I'm not saying I outright hate it because it makes her evil-I dislike that they aren't integral parts of her plan who are also eventual sacrifices

. Also, I find it a bit weird that every country other than Bessemia has a fundamental problem that could lead to instability with the right planning. I know this is because of the Empress's plan and because Bessemia is older, but it's still a bit weird that there isn't at least some underlying tension that could (eventually) be exploited. Since I've already read stardust in their veins I am desperate for the third book.

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shahdhazem's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad medium-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

3.5

Honestly it's a good fantasy read, well built world, good plot, numerous characters and a simple writingstyle. The author also managed each of the POV and plot line of each princess pretty well and kept me interested. The problem for me was that I predicted the plot lines of the princesses from the start but somehow the author still kept me wanting to continue and actually managed a beautiful twist at the end of the book. That's why I raised my initial rating of 3 stars to 3.5 but honestly it can't be higher. And that's for multiple other reasons than the fact that I predicted the plot which are the utmost stretching of events and the fact that the author didn't manage to get me attached by any way to the characters and their sisterly relation. Despite her numerous tries of insisting upon how special their relation was because of how their mother treated them but I still couldn't feel them. Also one of the main things that intrigued me about the book was the title. It's definitely a new one so I was really looking forward to understand It's significance in the book but we didn't get that at all and i'm actually really bummed about it cause it honestly makes no sense compared to the story. In the end, the important question is whether I recommend this or not? I'd say I do but don't expect something big out of it. It's a quick enjoyable read with lots of events so probably could get you out of a slump but I'd say it lacks lots of events to be great you know. Oh and one last thing, will I be reading the second book? Honestly I don't want to cause as I said I don't care about the characters at all but still the last chapter got me intrigued so I think I'd probably give it a try but I don't have any hopes for it.

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bookswithjk's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Far better than I anticipated. While the book does have the classic enemies to lovers and “infiltrate an enemy kingdom in order to bring it down” tropes, the politics were very accessible. The twists and turns were enough to leave me guessing and wanting to know more. I can’t wait to read the sequel!

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ezwolf's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Triplet princesses who are trained from birth to marry into other royal families and take over so their mother, the Empress, can rule all of them.

That sounds incredibly interesting and it was for the most part, but I wasn't really wowed by the book. It was a fine read and if you like court fantasies then this is probably a book you would like. I'm interested enough to continue the series but I don't know, I was kind of underwhelmed.

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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

3.25

The premise of this book centers around political intrigue told in multiple POV.

While I'm not a big fan of multiple POV, especially when it's more than two, I did enjoy this book.

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faefires's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

if nothing else, this book is gutsy. three separate but interwoven storylines with three princesses and three princes and a shit ton of kings and side characters and political entanglement AND magic…it’s quite the undertaking.
there are things to enjoy about this book. the political intrigue is well, intriguing, the stakes are high, there’s a lot going on. despite that, there’s also nothing going on. chapters are spent describing tea parties and cakes and dresses that do not matter, and despite the importance of the four main countries, only one is fully fleshed out. for most of the book, daphne, who is meant to be the most clever, does literally nothing. the magic system is similarly underdeveloped, and is pretty much used as a get out of jail free card for the characters when they need to get around a plot issue.

twists abound, but after the third major reveal it gets tiring and no longer is unexpected. in a book like this, you expect everyone to betray everyone—so when the characters get betrayed for the sixth consecutive time, you’re hardly surprised, and end up slightly annoyed. the author clearly can write an engaging PLOT, but the characters have less going for them. they are hardly ever physically described with anything other than vague terms “pretty, handsome, soft, harsh, or beautiful”, which makes it difficult to picture them, and makes them all blend together in the mind. you can tell the author wrote lines to be “ya marketable,” the type of lines used in trailers and edits and promotional materials, rather than trying to make them not be cringey or overdramatic.

this book was almost good. but it was a bit too long, a bit underdeveloped, and a bit too mass market appeal YA fiction. the book succeeds in setting up an interesting premise for a series and it’s future sequels, but shoots itself in the foot by

killing its most likable and well developed character,

leaving me with little motivation to await the releases.

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kodafaith's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I was very conflicted about this book. I loved the political intrigue and following the separate yet connected plots. However I felt the whole thing fell flat and a lot of it was just forgettable.
The ending does leave on such a cliffhanger that will definitely have me coming back for more.

Also another issue I had was with the ebook where the names to distinguish whose POV we were in got mixed up at about half way and kept being wrong throughout. I was alternating with the audiobook and it was just making it confusing with no chapter numbers and then getting mixed up. There were also a few moments where a name was wrong in the text. Stuff like that doesn’t normally bug me but it kept occurring so it got annoying.

Overall it was a fun series and was entertaining enough, I’m looking forward to the other books to see where the books go. But this one didn’t fully connect for me.

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