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acuriousreader's Reviews (573)
Wow. Wow. Wow.
Morally grey characters? Two villains (in their own way) pinned against each other? Supernatural abilities mixed with experimentation and science?
Sign me the fuck up!
This book was one of the best I have read this year. And I don’t think I will ever get enough of Victor Vale. He is probably one of the worst people... but I smiled at every bit of evil and torture he put out.
This book follows Victor Vale and Eli (Evers) Cardale. It flips back and forth between the past and present, which usually I don’t care for in a novel but V. E. Schwab made it work here.
Victor has recently escaped from a max security prison, in which his good old friend Eli had sent him, and is now on the hunt to find Eli. Eli is a tough person to kill (for reasons I won’t say) but oh, would Victor like to try. And just seeing his blood would make Vic really happy.
Eli is on a path of self riotousness, essentially believing he is one with God, or at least His right hand man, and while he believes Vic is locked away for good he has been spending his time finding other ExtraOrdinaries... and making sure they meet their end.
The amount of viciousness (ahhhhhhh! See what I did there?) and darkness that is with in and between the two characters makes this a delicious and dark alluring read. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has an eye and mind for morally grey characters and villains.
V. E. Schwab just has a way off pulling you in with her characters and having you hate them one minute to being ready to protect them at all costs the next. Victor Vale has definitely made my book boyfriend list, I don’t care how brutal he is. What ever is left of his twisted heart, I want it.
It was good... but not great.
The main thing that The Winners Curse had going for it is the political intrigue. If not for that I probably would have DNF'd it. And it held the book up enough that I feel like it was warranted a 3 star.
If you are heavily into political intrigue in novels, like I am, then this book is right up your alley. Though I think that this book suffers from its romance. It's one of those rare books where I would have rather seen no romance at all. Perhaps a more deadly game of deception between Kestrel and Arin, where they both are playing to each others emotions, when in reality neither of them have any feeling for the other.
I'm hoping it gets better as each book unfolds, but truth be told the ending did not impress me at all. Meaning it will probably be a good chunk of time before I dive into the next book in this trilogy.
Kestrel was another saving grace for this novel. I love a badass female lead. especially when her "badassery" doesn't come from her ability to fight, in fact Kestrel straight up sucks on that front. She can hold her own in a battle or duel, but everyone knows she will come out on the loosing end. No, where Kestrels badassness stems is her cunning, wit, and intelligence. And not to mention her straight up defiance of what should be the "Norm" for women in this world.
Actual Review
I honestly do not even know where to start… Queen of Nothing was one of most anticipated reads, I was so excited to finally read the epic conclusion of what could have been one of my favourite trilogies. But, to say this book was a disappointment is an understatement.
First and foremost, spoilers ahead , you have been warned.
What is this book about?
Queen of Nothing is the third and final book to The Cruel Prince trilogy. It follows our main character Jude who has gotten quite the taste of power in the last two instalments but finds her self exiled from Elfame and shoved back into the human world and it was done by none other than Cardan, High King of Elfame. But, the kicker? He had just made her his Queen.
What I Liked
Let’s start off with some positives shall we? In the simplest, I am Jude/Cardan trash… anything to do with them, together, i will enjoy and never feel satisfied.
.
.
… well that’s about the end of that list! Oh, wait. I liked the cover too, I guess.
What I Disliked
Oof, have a seat Gentlefriends, grab a snack, we could be here awhile.
But no, seriously, I just felt like everything felt off in this book. Let’s begin with the pacing. It was atrocious. there were so many conflicts throughout this entire ordeal that were summed up and solved almost immediately and in the most convenient of ways that it all felt rushed. This honestly read more of on outline to what the book should have been/ could have tackled. There needed to be more depth and to dive into the problems and lore and background of the events with more detail and care.
Can we take a minute and talk about the major plot holes surrounding Taryn? Are you telling me after all the crap she pulled, we are just gunna redeem her in a two second sob story of “oh, poor me, everything anyone told me of locke is true, but I’m an idiot, wah-wah”… ugh. and THEN in that particular scene where the folk are questioning Jude as Queen, Taryn is the one that steps in and is like “the land healed her, we saw it, it chose her”, and the entire court is like *gasp* “My Queen!”… wait wait WAIT. They are going to believe TARYN.. the mortal girl who can lie, the mortal girl who is CURRENTLY not in good standings with the court… yeah okay, sure.
I could honestly go on and on but lastly I want to talk about how the characters weren’t themselves. And look I know many people are like “HoW cAn ThEy NoT bE tHeMsElVes, TheY aRe HoLlYs ChArAcTeRs” and the greatest one “ItS ChArAcTeR DeVeLoPmEnT”. Look, I’m down for soft boi Cardan just as much as anyone else, but babes… that wasn’t character development. That was a personality switch so fast I’m still suffering from whiplash.
Overall
In conclusion, i think it had potential to be an amazing ending to a phenomenal trilogy. But, it was rushed out too quickly, it should have just come out next year. It was way too short for the amount of detail needed to pull off a lot of the plot points. And finally, in the rush of getting the book out and all of the ups and down in the plot twists, the characters were lost and attention to detail was missed.
Queen of Nothing gets an extremely sad 2 out of 5 stars from me, and I think I’m going to pretend it is just a duology with a banger of a cliffhanger.
-----------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: after sitting with it for a few days, it's a 2 star
-----------------------------------------------------
I——- don’t even know what to think. Disappointing, predictable, pacing was off and felt like the entire thing was rushed. I honestly don’t know if this is a 2.5/5 or a 3/5
It’s only got this high of a rating cause I’m a Jude/Cardan whore.... and I could read anything with them in it and stay entertained. *sigh*
I honestly do not even know where to start… Queen of Nothing was one of most anticipated reads, I was so excited to finally read the epic conclusion of what could have been one of my favourite trilogies. But, to say this book was a disappointment is an understatement.
First and foremost, spoilers ahead , you have been warned.
What is this book about?
Queen of Nothing is the third and final book to The Cruel Prince trilogy. It follows our main character Jude who has gotten quite the taste of power in the last two instalments but finds her self exiled from Elfame and shoved back into the human world and it was done by none other than Cardan, High King of Elfame. But, the kicker? He had just made her his Queen.
What I Liked
Let’s start off with some positives shall we? In the simplest, I am Jude/Cardan trash… anything to do with them, together, i will enjoy and never feel satisfied.
.
.
… well that’s about the end of that list! Oh, wait. I liked the cover too, I guess.
What I Disliked
Oof, have a seat Gentlefriends, grab a snack, we could be here awhile.
But no, seriously, I just felt like everything felt off in this book. Let’s begin with the pacing. It was atrocious. there were so many conflicts throughout this entire ordeal that were summed up and solved almost immediately and in the most convenient of ways that it all felt rushed. This honestly read more of on outline to what the book should have been/ could have tackled. There needed to be more depth and to dive into the problems and lore and background of the events with more detail and care.
Can we take a minute and talk about the major plot holes surrounding Taryn? Are you telling me after all the crap she pulled, we are just gunna redeem her in a two second sob story of “oh, poor me, everything anyone told me of locke is true, but I’m an idiot, wah-wah”… ugh. and THEN in that particular scene where the folk are questioning Jude as Queen, Taryn is the one that steps in and is like “the land healed her, we saw it, it chose her”, and the entire court is like *gasp* “My Queen!”… wait wait WAIT. They are going to believe TARYN.. the mortal girl who can lie, the mortal girl who is CURRENTLY not in good standings with the court… yeah okay, sure.
I could honestly go on and on but lastly I want to talk about how the characters weren’t themselves. And look I know many people are like “HoW cAn ThEy NoT bE tHeMsElVes, TheY aRe HoLlYs ChArAcTeRs” and the greatest one “ItS ChArAcTeR DeVeLoPmEnT”. Look, I’m down for soft boi Cardan just as much as anyone else, but babes… that wasn’t character development. That was a personality switch so fast I’m still suffering from whiplash.
Overall
In conclusion, i think it had potential to be an amazing ending to a phenomenal trilogy. But, it was rushed out too quickly, it should have just come out next year. It was way too short for the amount of detail needed to pull off a lot of the plot points. And finally, in the rush of getting the book out and all of the ups and down in the plot twists, the characters were lost and attention to detail was missed.
Queen of Nothing gets an extremely sad 2 out of 5 stars from me, and I think I’m going to pretend it is just a duology with a banger of a cliffhanger.
-----------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: after sitting with it for a few days, it's a 2 star
-----------------------------------------------------
I——- don’t even know what to think. Disappointing, predictable, pacing was off and felt like the entire thing was rushed. I honestly don’t know if this is a 2.5/5 or a 3/5
It’s only got this high of a rating cause I’m a Jude/Cardan whore.... and I could read anything with them in it and stay entertained. *sigh*
