A review by emilyusuallyreading
Broken Crowns by Lauren DeStefano
5.0
What I Liked
As always, I love DeStefano's beautiful writing. I love the characters in this trilogy - every single one.
I think what I like the most about this series is the role that friendship plays. In so many YA books, I find romance being the main focus - and romance exists here... but friendship exists the most. As someone who was influenced much more by friends than by romances when I was a teen, I appreciate this. The fact that Pen and Morgan trust each other and stick together despite all of the hurts of the past and the present is beautiful. And their friendship is what makes this book truly worth reading, more than anything else.
While I was left craving more from these worlds, I was satisfied with the ending.
What I Didn't Like
That the trilogy is over. But really, there is so much of the world below to explore - so little that we saw in these few books, and I wish I could be there while Morgan and Pen explored all of it.
While I get this is YA fiction, I'm not a big fan of the fate of the world being left up to a handful of kids, and this has that... big time. Assassinations, saving the world, ruling the world, saving each other, literally discovering issues with science and engineering and technology - the kids can do everything here, which isn't that realistic to me.
I wish more was done with Judas. Not necessarily in a love triangle, but just more of a conclusion in general.
As always, I love DeStefano's beautiful writing. I love the characters in this trilogy - every single one.
I think what I like the most about this series is the role that friendship plays. In so many YA books, I find romance being the main focus - and romance exists here... but friendship exists the most. As someone who was influenced much more by friends than by romances when I was a teen, I appreciate this. The fact that Pen and Morgan trust each other and stick together despite all of the hurts of the past and the present is beautiful. And their friendship is what makes this book truly worth reading, more than anything else.
While I was left craving more from these worlds, I was satisfied with the ending.
Spoiler
Even the way things ended with Morgan's parents worked for me. It was sad and tragic, but it worked. Same with Basil - and even with Pen's parents.What I Didn't Like
That the trilogy is over. But really, there is so much of the world below to explore - so little that we saw in these few books, and I wish I could be there while Morgan and Pen explored all of it.
While I get this is YA fiction, I'm not a big fan of the fate of the world being left up to a handful of kids, and this has that... big time. Assassinations, saving the world, ruling the world, saving each other, literally discovering issues with science and engineering and technology - the kids can do everything here, which isn't that realistic to me.
I wish more was done with Judas. Not necessarily in a love triangle, but just more of a conclusion in general.