A review by kaleyamo
The Hundredth Queen by Emily R. King

4.0

I was immediately drawn into this book. After a short while, I was concerned I started reading this book too soon after I've gone through the Red Queen series, because I was finding a lot of similarities. And it's true: This book does have a lot of similarities to other beloved YA tales.

There may be spoilers below in the books' similarities, so stop reading now if you don't want to see them.

Being selected and forced to fight to the death (Hunger Games). Think you're average and discovering you have powers that make you more powerful than those in charge (Red Queen). Being betrothed to someone but longing after another (Red Queen).

But there were enough unique elements that kept me going. I was intrigued the whole time and actually finished the book pretty quickly, because once I'd pick it up again I wouldn't want to put it down.

I know some other reviews have pointed to the "instalove" in this story as an element they didn't like or that wasn't believable, but I thought it made sense so I was perfectly fine with it.

Spoiler

Kalinda was immediately intrigued because it was the first man she'd ever seen. She'd heard horror stories about men and how violent they were, but he was always gentle, kind and respectful. And he was, in her opinion, attractive. For someone who'd always heard horrible things, it makes sense to me why she was so drawn to someone who was the complete opposite. I guess maybe the instalove was less believable on his side, but alas, oh well. I still liked it.