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A review by exlibrismira
The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King
2.0
Why does every damn YA high fantasy book have to have some kind of trail? Why?
Okay so let's say I see a man, a real man if flesh and all, a man that I know nothing at all about, for the first time in my gloriously menless existence. What do I do? I, *cough cough*, desire him, fall madly in love with him with next to no reason, am ready to put my life on the line in order to save him. Naturally.
Talk about raging hormones. If there's anything I truly despise in YA literature, or any book really, is poor reasoning behind the actions of the characters. Insta love can very easily be the downfall of a potentially decent book.
Let's talk hypothetical here - this books could have been so much more. SO MUCH MORE. The thing I found myself wishing for was f/f romance. Imagine how much better of a story [b:The Hundredth Queen|32852217|The Hundredth Queen (The Hundredth Queen, #1)|Emily R. King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1484806967s/32852217.jpg|57513415] would have been had the romance not been focused on a blatantly obvious relationship between our special snowflake heroine and her beloved guard who is coincidentally the first man she has ever set her eyes upon, and instead have been a story of Kalinda and, say, Jaya (or anyone really) being amazing girlfriends who would defeat the overpowering patriarchy together and rise as ultimate power couple against all odds. That would have been an interesting read.
This is what a call a missed oportunity. So instead of a highly diverse f/f fantasy the YA genre is so desperately lacking, we get a stereotypical tale about an ugly and plain (but not really because all men find her beautiful, of course), unexplainably sickly (do you see it coming already?) orphan girl with mysterious heritage (yeah, it's one of those), with a boring, shallow romance and plot twists that are about as unexpected as drama on RuePaul's Drag Race. Did we really need another one of those?
Okay so let's say I see a man, a real man if flesh and all, a man that I know nothing at all about, for the first time in my gloriously menless existence. What do I do? I, *cough cough*, desire him, fall madly in love with him with next to no reason, am ready to put my life on the line in order to save him. Naturally.
Talk about raging hormones. If there's anything I truly despise in YA literature, or any book really, is poor reasoning behind the actions of the characters. Insta love can very easily be the downfall of a potentially decent book.
Let's talk hypothetical here - this books could have been so much more. SO MUCH MORE. The thing I found myself wishing for was f/f romance. Imagine how much better of a story [b:The Hundredth Queen|32852217|The Hundredth Queen (The Hundredth Queen, #1)|Emily R. King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1484806967s/32852217.jpg|57513415] would have been had the romance not been focused on a blatantly obvious relationship between our special snowflake heroine and her beloved guard who is coincidentally the first man she has ever set her eyes upon, and instead have been a story of Kalinda and, say, Jaya (or anyone really) being amazing girlfriends who would defeat the overpowering patriarchy together and rise as ultimate power couple against all odds. That would have been an interesting read.
This is what a call a missed oportunity. So instead of a highly diverse f/f fantasy the YA genre is so desperately lacking, we get a stereotypical tale about an ugly and plain (but not really because all men find her beautiful, of course), unexplainably sickly (do you see it coming already?) orphan girl with mysterious heritage (yeah, it's one of those), with a boring, shallow romance and plot twists that are about as unexpected as drama on RuePaul's Drag Race. Did we really need another one of those?