A review by rg9400
The Bitter Crown by Justin Lee Anderson

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

This is a very hard book to talk about without spoiling the first book, but I'm going to try. I was curious how this book could possibly follow up to the first book, and I was pretty impressed with the general direction. It doesn't try to one up or follow the same objectives as the first book. And the book shifts a bit from being a sort of Witcher-esque dark fantasy DnD adventure following a group of characters defined mostly by their roles, to instead a fascinating exploration of misinformation and sympathetic characters taking radical actions when feeling like the world gives them no other recourse. The first half has some twisted but excellent mini-adventures. The second half slows down, but it still has some of that intriguing character work...until the ending. The ending was strange in a few ways. For one, it felt a bit anticlimactic, but also rushed? There was a sort of uncanniness to everything. Characters felt like they were doing stuff a bit out of character, and the impact of those didn't fully land in the way I suspect the author was intending. But also, this series is doing some stuff where this feeling that something is off is part of the experience, so I trust the Justin and will definitely read the conclusion.