silabc 's review for:

İki Çarpık Taç by Rachel Gillig

4.75

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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You are the Shepherd King—the author of everything I have ever known. You wrote Blunder’s history, Aemmory Percyval Taxus. Now rewrite it.

I LOOOOVEEEDDD IT! Such an upgrade to the first book! The multiple POVs really helped, apparently I didn't dislike the first book, I just disliked Elspeth lol. 

I read this on a summer vacation on the beach, yet every time I started reading it I got immersed in the gothic foggy woods vibes immediately. The author does a wonderful job with the setting. I loooveeedd the Nightmare, he was my favorite character by far in both of the books, and I was so happy that he was incorporated into the story in the second book as much as he was.

I know it was obvious he had to go from the beginning of the first book, but I was still clinging to him when he did. Some characters, if they are not lost, the plot doesn't make sense. So you prepare yourself along the story for their inevitable death, but despite my best efforts I am always saddened by these bittersweet endings.

The only reason this is a 4.75 and not a 5 star for me is my personal preference for the amount of romance scenes (my preference is none). 

I had a "predictable plot twists" complaint for the first book, maybe it is the lack of Elspeth commentary in the second book but there were less of these.

But I was very surprised when Taxus-Yew therefore Nightmare-Ravyn connection was "revealed" with its whole big moment at the end of Chapter 41. I thought this was revealed at the beginning of Chapter 3. After reading the Chapter 41 "reveal", I realized, that maybe Taxus=Yew is a me-being-a-biologist category knowledge and not a common fun fact to everyone. But still, even if this is not common knowledge, every bookish person I know look up words they don't know, so I think it is silly if the reveal to the reader was really meant at Chapter 41.