Queen of the Tearling #1 - Erika Johansen ~ REVIEW

 

MY RATING: ★★★ STARS

OVERALL THOUGHTS: BOTH GOOD AND BAD, INTERESTING POLITIC TOPICS BUT QUITE SLOW-PACED AND BORING

I'm not exaggerating by saying that this book has been on my TBR list for over seven years. SEVEN YEARS. That's how long I've waited since hearing many booktubers gushing about this book to me finally getting it on my Kindle the day before yesterday. And my thoughts feel quite mixed.

Really, I should stop being so surpsised to find that so many of the books that I had been longing to read since my teens or early 20s turn out to be so meh. And Queen of the Tearling sadly has been put onto my "meh" list. 

There are a few reasons why this book fell under my expectations. 

1. The reader is given the bare minumum of context at the beginning of the book. We find ourselves with Kelsea, who has finally turned ninteen and is the rightful heir to the Tear throne. Oh, and she has to somehow get to the palace, lest she is assassinated. That's pretty much all we know about her. And that apparently she's not so pretty. Sometimes less is more in terms of keeping the reader hooked to your story, but this time it just made me frustrated. Why should I care about Kelsea? Why should I care where she's going and what this Tear kingdom is?
2. It was incredibly slow-paced. Almost the first half of the book is about Kelsea and her guards making it across the country to get her throne. The only other book that I can remember being that slow-placed was the first Lord of the Rings book. 
3. The evil or bad things that were recorded felt more like they were just done for shock factor and didn't feel like they propelled the story forward. I was getting increasingly more frustrated at seeing women reduced to sex slaves. 
4. Kelsea was an annoying protagonist. There were definitely some badass moments, but most of the time she was whining about how ugly she found herself. 
5. The plot barely existed. Nothing really happened except Kelsea becoming queen and freeing some slaves. This book could have been about 300 pages shorter and still kept all of the plot intact. 

There were some positives about this book, namely that the political side of the story did intrigue me. But the problem was that none of it seemed to have any consequence. Kelsea freed some slaves that was supposed to bring Mort's huge army over to kill them. But nothing happened! I can imaging that something might happen in the next book, but it still doesn't give this first book any kind of danger or plot.  

I'm still unsure whether I'm going to continue on with the sequel. My plan is to not continue and pick up the book if the fancy ever strikes me.