Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns #1)
This is not going to be a spoiler free review, so if you haven’t read Three Dark Crowns (#1) yet, you should come back to this review when you are deciding to move forward with the series.
These two books were originally intended to be a duology, and I can see why. This book could have ended with a queen who changes the system of murder and they all live kind of happily ever after. But then the series got extended to four books and we had to have a cliffhanger.
It’s just another whole book about the triplet queens taking part in the Ascension Year by trying to kill each other. The only difference is that after being thrown into the Breccia Domain (the deep crevasse in the center of the island where all dead queen’s bodies are thrown to be forgotten) by Peter, Katherine is fucking bonkers crazy and completely different than she was before. We’re not sure why at first, but eventually we’re told it’s probably because she’s possessed by the spirits of the dead queens who are completely out of fucks to give and want everything dead.
So I have some questions.
First, how does this end? Are you telling me that in the thousands of years that this island has been murdering teenagers there has never been a year in which a queen died in childbirth? Or all three queens died for one reason or another without bearing the Goddess-blessed triplets? So this is the ONE TIME in the history of the island where the queens refused to murder their sisters and one of them is a fucking psychopath who is basically made out of poison?
Second, I must have not received the message of how the queen’s magicks work in this universe. Katherine has sex with her king-consort and murders the everloving daylights out of him because every part of her seethes with poison. How? When? Why now? Why not when she touches Mirabella at the ball? When she touches Arsinoe’s bear? When did she turn from crazy small girl to leaking bag of poison?
Third, Mirabella and Arsinoe escape to the mainland and you don’t think those “humans” aren’t going to turn them right back around? Sure, they have William Chatworth Jr (whose scheming dad is super dead now – I won’t spoil that one) so I guess that’s how they’ll survive, but how will they hide that they are queens? I guess I’ll need to wait for the next book to find this one out.
Fourth, I’m almost at the point of who cares. I felt like this at the end of book 2 of the Hunger Games – there’s only so much senseless killing and cruelty I can take without something changing or being different to allow for a change of pace or tone. This has been two books of WHO WILL DIE AND WHO WILL BECOME QUEEN and idk, who cares? I don’t feel any hope. I don’t feel like things can change. I’m glad that Arsinoe and Mirabella escaped, why can’t we just let them have their lives and let this nasty island burn itself out? Who cares?
I am going to read the next book Two Dark Reigns to see if it turns around, and the final fourth book comes out this year so perhaps we’re heading for a satisfying conclusion. Go get this one to keep up, but I’m tentative and skeptical about what the remaining books of the series have to offer and whether I want to stick around long enough to find out.
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