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A review by lockmm
Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake
1.0
It took me seven months to read this boring, terrible and painful book. Seven. Months. I finally finished because I refused to enter 2019 with this still on my Goodreads Currently Reading tracker and it takes a lot for me to DNF a book, especially one that I bought. Which is the painful part - thankfully I’ve learned from that and picked up my next YA Fantasy from the library.
The sad thing is, I was excited for this. The premise and the summary are interesting and I love political royal family fantasy books. Just give me a book of rich people dealing with petty problems with some whimsy, and I’m there for it. In Three Dark Crowns, a set of triplets are born every generation. Always women, always equal heirs to the throne, and always a possessor of some form of magic - elemental, naturalist, and poisoner. And yea, I have no idea why “being really good at poisoning people and being immune to poison” is considered to be a talent on par with being able to control the elements and nature, but somehow the last bunch of queens have all been poisoners and able to poison their sisters. One would think having a taste tester, object handler and mail checker on hand would kind of take care of that problem. Meanwhile, there’s only ever been one naturalist queen even though she can control animals and plants and people are hoping they finally have a woman who can control fire, water and air well enough to beat someone who is really good at poisoning people. What I’m saying is, there’s a power imbalance and it’s stupid that the weakest power keeps winning.
Anyway, the only way one can become queen is by killing her sisters. And I’m here for this plot - which I originally thought would be something like the king is on his deathbed and his daughters are going to have to fight each other sooner rather than later. And the sisters are experiencing internal conflict about it because they grew up together so they don’t want to kill each other. Basically, I thought I was getting a YA Fantasy inspired by King Lear.
Instead, what we get is three sisters who weren’t raised together, two who don’t have any memories of their sisters and are quite alright with killing each other. One of them is actively planning on how to do it, while the other is just willing to kill to survive. There’s no point to them being sisters because there’s no sisterly relationship. They might as well be third cousins for all the connection they feel with each other. If they don’t care that they have to kill each other, why should I care?
But I can forgive that as long as there was some action. But nope! 75% of this book is just them puttering around practicing their powers and mooning over boys. One of their storylines doesn’t even star them until about 50% through - it’s all about her best friend who is a random nobody (which probably means she’ll end up as the queen), and the boy she’s been pining over for years. And he’s been pining over her too for years - but then he sleeps with one of the queens once and we’re supposed to believe he’s also madly in love with her. And I think Blake’s intention isn’t to have the reader wish this guy would fall off a cliff and never return, but I do wish that.
Stuff finally started to happen in the last 25% but it was way too late for me. I was only ever invested in one of the queen’s storylines and that was the one that had to share “screen time” with their random friend. The other two were dull dull dull. There’s a twist at the end and it’s not even a good twist. It’s certainly not the one I would have gone with but whatever. The ultimate depressing these is you feel like Blake wants you to think these are strong female characters who would make great leaders but they’re really not. None of them are ever really in charge or have any autonomy. One is a powerful elemental but she never uses that power to put people in their place except one time towards the end. It’s like “Gurl, you can and have buried innocent people alive - why not use that power on people that treat you and other people like shit?”
Despite all this, I could be convinced to read the second book. The last 25% gave me some hope, though I then think of the first 75% and remind myself that it took me seven months to read it and I only finished because I’m masochist and I spent $15 on this book. 1 out of 5 stars.
The sad thing is, I was excited for this. The premise and the summary are interesting and I love political royal family fantasy books. Just give me a book of rich people dealing with petty problems with some whimsy, and I’m there for it. In Three Dark Crowns, a set of triplets are born every generation. Always women, always equal heirs to the throne, and always a possessor of some form of magic - elemental, naturalist, and poisoner. And yea, I have no idea why “being really good at poisoning people and being immune to poison” is considered to be a talent on par with being able to control the elements and nature, but somehow the last bunch of queens have all been poisoners and able to poison their sisters. One would think having a taste tester, object handler and mail checker on hand would kind of take care of that problem. Meanwhile, there’s only ever been one naturalist queen even though she can control animals and plants and people are hoping they finally have a woman who can control fire, water and air well enough to beat someone who is really good at poisoning people. What I’m saying is, there’s a power imbalance and it’s stupid that the weakest power keeps winning.
Anyway, the only way one can become queen is by killing her sisters. And I’m here for this plot - which I originally thought would be something like the king is on his deathbed and his daughters are going to have to fight each other sooner rather than later. And the sisters are experiencing internal conflict about it because they grew up together so they don’t want to kill each other. Basically, I thought I was getting a YA Fantasy inspired by King Lear.
Instead, what we get is three sisters who weren’t raised together, two who don’t have any memories of their sisters and are quite alright with killing each other. One of them is actively planning on how to do it, while the other is just willing to kill to survive. There’s no point to them being sisters because there’s no sisterly relationship. They might as well be third cousins for all the connection they feel with each other. If they don’t care that they have to kill each other, why should I care?
But I can forgive that as long as there was some action. But nope! 75% of this book is just them puttering around practicing their powers and mooning over boys. One of their storylines doesn’t even star them until about 50% through - it’s all about her best friend who is a random nobody (which probably means she’ll end up as the queen), and the boy she’s been pining over for years. And he’s been pining over her too for years - but then he sleeps with one of the queens once and we’re supposed to believe he’s also madly in love with her. And I think Blake’s intention isn’t to have the reader wish this guy would fall off a cliff and never return, but I do wish that.
Stuff finally started to happen in the last 25% but it was way too late for me. I was only ever invested in one of the queen’s storylines and that was the one that had to share “screen time” with their random friend. The other two were dull dull dull. There’s a twist at the end and it’s not even a good twist. It’s certainly not the one I would have gone with but whatever. The ultimate depressing these is you feel like Blake wants you to think these are strong female characters who would make great leaders but they’re really not. None of them are ever really in charge or have any autonomy. One is a powerful elemental but she never uses that power to put people in their place except one time towards the end. It’s like “Gurl, you can and have buried innocent people alive - why not use that power on people that treat you and other people like shit?”
Despite all this, I could be convinced to read the second book. The last 25% gave me some hope, though I then think of the first 75% and remind myself that it took me seven months to read it and I only finished because I’m masochist and I spent $15 on this book. 1 out of 5 stars.