Reviews with content warning for Grief - The War of Two Queens

A lot happened in this one—world building (yes, more of it), war, the desperation of freeing a heartmate, lust, love, and the ongoing battle between mother and daughter. Not only did we get to see POVs from Poppy and Casteel, which was a nice switch up, we also got to see a whole lot more.

Count me in for the next book.

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mamat5925's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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eleek0609's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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mightymaite's review against another edition

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emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

What a beautiful progression of the story. Poppy and Cas being apart so long made you suffer, but also made the character and relationship development in this book possible. The trauma that Cas went through, the aftermath and the impact on Poppy were so gripping! The atrocities of war in this book were written beautifully and so visually that it gripped you by the throat and branded itself on your eyes.
After seeing the relationships between the characters change and develop over multiple books, it was the perfect time for the Joining to happen. Very natural progression to get here. Tastefully written, full of love and friendship.
This book was the perfect bridge between Poppy's and Nyktos' storyline.

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roget's review

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No

1.0

This reads like a crack fic.

This series would be so much stronger if space that was given to all the tone-ignorant quipping and pages of unnecessarily aggressive, uncomfortable exchanges were instead given to expanding the lore.

The real plot is crammed into info-dumps in dialogue—just like, lecture after lecture of some being or another backtracking like “Well, ACTUALLY…” and then re-explaining lore and ancient relationships that’d already been explained and re-explained half a dozen times but apparently incorrectly. The consort? Interesting plot line. I wish we’d have gotten more of that development.

The Malik-Poppy backstory reveal was absolutely undercut by the series’s penchant for throwing gossip girl-style shocking “twists” at us every five minutes, not to mention the tonally inconsistent suggestive and situationally abhorrent illicit comments. The series isn’t respectful to Kieren, either. He’s basically treated like Poppy’s arm candy this book, and Poppy’s character is shockingly undynamic given the many, many changes she’s been through. She’s still acting like the angry, impulsive, and brash kid who’s playing at power without really understanding it.

The pacing is weird.

Spoiler

It takes them over half the book to rescue Cas, then it’s a large chunk of just adult scenes—the most awkward of which occur in the house of a set of resistance people who take them in and offer shelter only to be melted by Isbeth once Poppy and Cas are done using their familial home as a love shack.

As for the content…

Spoiler

There are numerous mature scenes, and if you’re not up for that, you’ll find yourself paging through them frustratedly and wading through neverending passages of violence as you wait for eons for an update about the more integral parts of the plot.

I’m interested to know more about the primals and their clearly warped family tree. I want Poppy to return to Ileesium. I want to see more of those dynamics unfold. I wish the book would spend more time and nuance developing that and Poppy herself.

Kind of just reading to find out what happens and how it wraps up at this point, which is disheartening. I’m sure some people find this series fun or entertaining, but the issues have sort of spoiled it for me, at least.

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