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A review by dreams_of_attolia
The Caged Queen by Kristen Ciccarelli
This is a book for people who like feeling things, and who aren't overly bothered about how the feeling-inducing situations are engineered. If that describes you, ignore the rest of my review! There will be plenty of feelings to enjoy, and also beautiful imagery and a cool internal mythology!
On the other hand, if you enjoy characters who make rational decisions based on information, you will find this book incredibly frustrating.
This entire book is one extended version of one of my least favorite tropes, "lovers are kept apart by misunderstandings because they refuse to just fucking talk to each other" and also one of my least favorite plot devices, "main character does stupid stuff to move the plot forward". Except it's worse than just lovers being kept apart, because Roa endangers an entire kingdom as she makes poor choices instead of seeking out some solid intel. And the lack of communication MAKES NO SENSE. Roa and Dax planned a whole fucking coup together, but now their feelings are hurt so they have lost the ability to have a conversation. The reader is told repeatedly that both Roa and Dax have put the well-being of their people above their own individual happiness, but apparently that does not extend to the great sacrifice of talking to each other. Roa could not possibly just ask Dax what his plan is, because then there'd be no way to set up a plot full of emotionally-wrenching choices.
Around page 260 I was like "finally, these two idiots are going to talk to each other!". Nope. They are not. That is the point that Roa finally starts to get a clue, but she does not at this point decide to figure out what else she may be wrong about. It takes to page 312 for Roa and Dax to finally clear the air about some key pieces of information, and by that point Roa has made so many poor decisions due to her ignorance that she has made everything very, very bad. like allowing Essie to get kidnapped by someone she can tell is shady fucker. Rebekah's character is so obviously evil-coded that she might as well twirl her mustache and go "mwahaha!". Rebekah's vileness is even apparent to oblivious-Roa, so why would Roa bring Essie just because Rebekah asked her to?
**Spoilers for Last Namsara in this paragraph**
I get the sense that this is the author's MO, to present a situation one way and slowly reveal information to the main character that changes the main character's perspective (I specifically say "reveal to the main character" and not "reveal to the reader" because in both Caged Queen and Last Namsara, the "big reveals" are telegraphed to the reader from the very beginning). I think the thing that makes this work in Namsara is that Asha is misinformed because she has faulty memories of a childhood trauma and she has been fed misinformation by a loved one her entire life. These are both totally plausible reasons for Asha not to immediately see what's going on (even if the reader can tell from very early on that the king is a shady mo-fo clearly up to no good). In Caged Queen, the reason that Roa doesn't see what's going on is that her husband is flirting with other women and therefore all of her logic and strategy (that we hear so much about throughout the book) has completely deserted her.
Also a key moment in the romantic plot was both: 1) gross and 2) out of line with the characters' previously described priorities. Dax has supposedly made all the decisions he's made in the last two books for the sake of his people. And he knows that the people trying to take over the kingdom are going to subjugate everyone outside of their own ethnic group. But he has now decided that none of that matters, because he loves Roa and he should let her murder him because of an accident that happened when he was a child and leave all of the kingdom in the hands of the evil councilors.
Also, letting someone kill you is not romantic! That is fucked up!
By this point I was hoping that both Roa and Dax would get eaten by a dragon. (less)
On the other hand, if you enjoy characters who make rational decisions based on information, you will find this book incredibly frustrating.
This entire book is one extended version of one of my least favorite tropes, "lovers are kept apart by misunderstandings because they refuse to just fucking talk to each other" and also one of my least favorite plot devices, "main character does stupid stuff to move the plot forward". Except it's worse than just lovers being kept apart, because Roa endangers an entire kingdom as she makes poor choices instead of seeking out some solid intel. And the lack of communication MAKES NO SENSE. Roa and Dax planned a whole fucking coup together, but now their feelings are hurt so they have lost the ability to have a conversation. The reader is told repeatedly that both Roa and Dax have put the well-being of their people above their own individual happiness, but apparently that does not extend to the great sacrifice of talking to each other. Roa could not possibly just ask Dax what his plan is, because then there'd be no way to set up a plot full of emotionally-wrenching choices.
Around page 260 I was like "finally, these two idiots are going to talk to each other!". Nope. They are not. That is the point that Roa finally starts to get a clue, but she does not at this point decide to figure out what else she may be wrong about. It takes to page 312 for Roa and Dax to finally clear the air about some key pieces of information, and by that point Roa has made so many poor decisions due to her ignorance that she has made everything very, very bad. like
**Spoilers for Last Namsara in this paragraph**
I get the sense that this is the author's MO, to present a situation one way and slowly reveal information to the main character that changes the main character's perspective (I specifically say "reveal to the main character" and not "reveal to the reader" because in both Caged Queen and Last Namsara, the "big reveals" are telegraphed to the reader from the very beginning). I think the thing that makes this work in Namsara is that Asha is misinformed because she has faulty memories of a childhood trauma and she has been fed misinformation by a loved one her entire life. These are both totally plausible reasons for Asha not to immediately see what's going on (even if the reader can tell from very early on that the king is a shady mo-fo clearly up to no good). In Caged Queen, the reason that Roa doesn't see what's going on is that her husband is flirting with other women and therefore all of her logic and strategy (that we hear so much about throughout the book) has completely deserted her.
Also a key moment in the romantic plot was both: 1) gross and 2) out of line with the characters' previously described priorities. Dax has supposedly made all the decisions he's made in the last two books for the sake of his people. And he knows that the people trying to take over the kingdom are going to subjugate everyone outside of their own ethnic group.
Also, letting someone kill you is not romantic! That is fucked up!
By this point I was hoping that both Roa and Dax would get eaten by a dragon. (less)