breewriteback 's review for:

The Traitor's Kingdom by Erin Beaty

2.0

Loveable characters: No

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i did not enjoy this book. the writing was fine, but i just had a lot of problems with the characters and the some elements of the plot.

first of all, i have never liked alex. he bothers me and i hate that he is with sage. second of all, sage annoyed me so much in this book. she would go and make all these reckless decisions without asking for anyone’s opinion, and then we are forced to read her essentially sulking because she has no one to hang out with because her friends are all mad at her. she wasn’t being nice or considerate at all for those around her (who are, keep in mind, her closest friends) and it would have been so easily avoided had she just taken two minutes to consult with people before making yet another rash decision.

the plot was okay. it was filled with tons of political intrigue, but it also felt kinda empty. like thinking back on what happened, i feel like they were just travelling between places for what felt like the majority of the book.

there were also elements to the plot that just seemed too unrealistic to be believable. a big conflict in sage and alex’s relationship is that they have to wait until he is 24 before they can get married. and yet right near the beginning of the book, it’s revealed that they’ve updated the law to allow them specifically to get married earlier. this just wasn’t believable to me because we are both shown and told that a good portion of the council do not like/respect sage and alex. no one addressed sage with her proper title, treating her as if she were still some commoner and not an ambassador. and so many of them made comments about how alex had only received his military rank because of nepotism. it’s hard to believe the people that think this way would be all for changing a law that quite literally only benefits sage and alex.

i think the writing was good, but unfortunately the characters and certain plot points made this book unenjoyable