A review by sweetreads111
The Cup and the Prince by Day Leitao

1.0

”Some might say she’d snapped. Nope. She had awoken. And seen the light.”

writing:

this book would be better if there was a single sentence that was more than 10 words.

there’s a lot of info dumping. this normally wouldn’t have been a big deal if i was 8 years old. but since im not, its like treading through mud.

not to mention, the overall writing was stilted and sort of clumpy, if you catch my drift.

it’s hard to read, and even harder to skim.

characters:

the fmc, zora really has no interesting features.

-she’s 17.
-she teaches little kids.
-she defeated 4 shadow wolves.
-she can read.
-her dad is the vally representative.
-she has never ridden or has ever been near a horse before.

none of that sounds very special. in fact, she sounds very privileged in terms of fantasy world building.

the book even says it itself:

”Zora was a decent fighter, but not the best, fastest, or strongest. Still, she had her mind.”

that means literally nothing in this cliched genre of ya fantasy.

let’s not mention that two seconds into meeting larzen (a prince and someone who she needs to hide her crime from) finds out that she cheated her way in.

“‘Interesting.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘And you wouldn’t have anything to do with this mysterious, sudden, illness?’”

you have to be painfully bad at lying or they have to be really smart for someone to find out about your secret frame one after meeting you.

on the other hand you have griffin:

zora: *walks into the library bc she can*
griffin: *leaning against a door* i take it you can read?
zora: well…why else would i be here?
griffin: blah blah, follow me. blah blah. *locks her in a research room*
zora: i hate you!!

YOU HAVE TO BE STUPID TO ASK THAT QUESTION.

then the next time in the library to zora and a random dude weirdly chilling and chatting about poetry and books…

and then there’s kiran dancing with zora. WHICH BROTHER IS SHE SUPPOSED TO FALL IN LOVE WITH?!

bottom line: this is a poor man’s copy of throne of glass.

if only i could share all my hilarious annotations