It has been a little bit sense I have done a review like this. Get ready for some opinions!
 |
| Taken from |
Book by Mary E. Pearson
A princess must find her place in a reborn world.
She flees on her wedding day.
She steals ancient documents from the Chancellor's secret collection.
She is pursued by bounty hunters sent by her own father.
She is Princess Lia, seventeen, First Daughter of the House of Morrighan.
The Kingdom of Morrighan is steeped in tradition and the stories of a bygone world, but some traditions Lia can't abide. Like having to marry someone she's never met to secure a political alliance.
Fed up and ready for a new life, Lia flees to a distant village on the morning of her wedding. She settles in among the common folk, intrigued when two mysterious and handsome strangers arrive—and unaware that one is the jilted prince and the other an assassin sent to kill her. Deceptions swirl and Lia finds herself on the brink of unlocking perilous secrets—secrets that may unravel her world—even as she feels herself falling in love.
Taken from Goodreads
Review:
4/5 Stars
I was recommended this book a long time ago, and while the concept intrigued me, I was hesitant to read it. Finally I managed to borrow the audio book from the library and listened to it.
I was instantly shocked, in a good way. I found I could not stop listening to this book. I finished it in four days, which for an audiobook that is 14 hours long, while I was working 8 hour days was impressive.
So back to the book. I was pulled in instantly. This land was magical and enchanting. I thought that the main part of the book would be the romance between the characters, but it was much more about the mystery. I was constantly stuck between wanting to google who was who and not wanting to know. The truth is told about 60% through the book, and still now I am not sure if that was too quick or too long of a wait.
Lia was a decent character. I understood where she came from and why she left in the beginning. I loved her relationships with her brothers and Paula. Like any good main character she has flaws. I hate that she lied to her best friend. I understand the reasons, but I fear that this will cause a problem in later books. Also I felt little character development from her. In the end she was still a princess, like the book had lost all of the progress she wanted to make. This I was okay with because it leads me to believe that in the future she will try again and succeed. Finally it was a little hard to understand her knife skills. I am assuming they grew suddenly because of her "gift" but it was unclear and seemed sudden.
The main problem I had with this book was the "gift" was unclear. It took me a long time into reading it to understand what exactly she could do. I did not mind the mystery, but even after it was explained, or assumed, I was still wondering constantly if there was more to it. Some more clarification would have been nice.
Now on to the boys. I will leave this as spoiler free as I possibly can, but for the sake of someone who has not read the book, I recommend skipping this paragraph. I, like every other reader, started out with a clear mindset believing extremely that one boy was the assassin and the other the prince. As I was listening though, I started to wonder about the fact that it seemed so clear that each was one of them, and I began to question it. Now, this has nothing to do with the writer and is totally the audiobooks fault, I began to pay more attention with they would be talking to figure out who was who. Suddenly I noticed that the voice of the assassin matched one boy and the prince matched another. This unfortunately ruined the big plot twist in the middle of the book, but I still loved what the author did by trying to trick the reader.
I loved the journey in this book. All of the places that I got to read about were so well described. I do wish I had the physical book so I could have seen a map, but again that has nothing to do with the writer. The second have of the book was my favorite. I loved the ending and plan to start the next one as soon as I can get it.
Things I loved about this book:
-royals becoming poor
-free person becoming a slave
-questioning who she really loved
-Vagabonds
-Quotes to start chapters
-Different POVs
Happy Reading
-Amanda Lyn
No comments:
Post a Comment