Review: Three Dark Crowns (K. Blake)
This is the second time I've read this book, but the first time was in July of 2017 so did I remember anything? Actually, yes (surprisingly). I remembered a couple of secondary characters, the names of all of the animals, and not much else (how do you like my priorities?). But I if I wanted to read the sequel I definitely needed to do a reread. So reread I did. Luckily I happen to own this book (bought the eBook for an 80% discount (thank you Goodreads!) so that meant I didn't have to wait until I could steal it from the library! (Not actually steal though. Borrow. Respectfully.)
In Three Dark Crowns, there are three queens: a poisoner (who can basically eat poison and not die), a naturalist (who can control animals and has a familiar), and an elemental (who can control... the elements!). The three queens are raised separately and train their entire lives for a competition, in which they have an entire year to try and kill each other. However, out of the three queens there's only one that actually shows any strength, while the other two seem abnormally weak. Can they survive until their day of reckoning? Or will they die before they even have the chance?
Out of the three queens, the only one I liked was... none of them. I actually didn't like any of them. Katharine and Arsinoe rubbed me the wrong way because although they were weak, they just... complained about being weak. Obviously Katharine was treated horribly, which makes me like her slightly more than Arsinoe, but for both of them I just wanted them to stand up and do something! But instead there was a lot of wandering and complaining. In Mirabella's case, there were a lot of elemental demonstrations and running away and that was pretty much it. I just really, really, didn't like them.
So why would I rate this book 4 stars, you ask?
Because of the secondary characters. Normally I'm not always a huge fan of secondary characters because they can be super irritating, but in this book they were A++. I liked them more than the main characters (obviously), because they all seemed to be more fleshed out and have more actual characteristic than the queens, who were just one thing.
I also was a huge fan of the plot because queens, competitions, death, and magic. What more could you want? Although the story was a tad slow and repetitive at parts, when it got going it REALLY moved, and I was just sucked in. I finished most of it on a plane ride, and then finally finished the other couple pages 2 days later. Oops.
Also if someone would like to explain why Goodreads says the book is 416 pages and my phone says it's 195 that would be great because... does not compute.
4/5 Stars