A review by nineinchnails
Shadow Princess by Caroline Peckham, Susanne Valenti

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

i feel like the writing has improved a tiny bit in this book but i'm not sure if it's just that i've gotten so accustomed to it so i don't know if any judgement i make in this review will be accurate. i know a lot of people hated tory in this book but as much as she was frustrating i understood her and i don't think i ever really disliked her. what's crazy is darcy was overwhelmingly my fav twin in the first couple books but i think that's now shifted to tory somehow. i'm probably biased because i too am prideful, stubborn, and constantly self sabotage so who am i to judge? i don't want to spoil anything outside of what is already known from the first 3 books so i'll just say almost all of the characters seemed to make progress only to backtrack or revert to their book 1 antics and it made me want to throw my phone at the wall.

also i have probably already said this a bajillion times but whilst i love darcy + (somewhat like) orion individually i hate their relationship. it's not even that it's forbidden or that it's a student/teacher relationship necessarily (because they are both adults technically) it's the dynamics: in a fantasy world there is definitely the opportunity to make it feel less gross (like how underage drinking in solaria is completely normalised) and that just wasn't the case imo so most of their scenes ick me out so bad. i know he cares about her a lot and does a lot for her but i don't like the way he goes about covering up his favouritism to save face sometimes because he just takes it too far imo. darcy is better than me for sure because i would not have tolerated that even once. the only time she's actually seemed to have a backbone was when she was pissed on tory's behalf, which is pretty in character for her but it's still hard to read. this book would've been rated higher if there was less darcyorion but alas!

i'm interested to see how tory and darius' relationship develops because they're both so similar in the worst ways (for a romantic relationship) and i can't see either of them actually compromising for each other as it stands. i know promises get made and words get said but that's an entirely different issue from either one of them delivering on that. they both have deep rooted trust issues, lack communication, and god knows what else + i have yet to see either of them making significant progress on that but i'm hoping it'll slowly happen over the next books and i am very excited because they have potential. tbh i find it hard to hate either of them because despite their very irritating behaviour i understand them (most of the time) and i feel like they have understandable reasons for their twisted logic.

the plot outside of the relationships was insane in the best way pretty much every time i had to put this down i was anxious to pick it back up. i was probably being overly paranoid because there was a lot of long slice of life type of scenes but i just felt the vague feeling of imminent threat the whole time and it was making me super anxious. i feel like the authors kinda make a lot of this stuff as they go along when it comes to the worldbuilding but that's part of what makes it so fun for me to read cause a lot of it feels very balls-to-the-wall crazy and unhinged. even the twins being mary sues is really fun for me cause it just feels really self indulgent whenever they're not fighting for their lives i love it! also yes this book was unnecessarily long but i love these characters and this world so idc!! 
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