Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake- Book Review
There are so many things I want to discuss about this novel. There were a lot of good features but there were also some elements that slightly disappointed me.
Overall, I really loved the plot line and the overall idea for the story: Three powerful sisters, one power-hungry battle to the throne. It was equally parts exciting and captivating.
However, as I said there were points in which I felt let down as a reader and in this space I'm going to try and unpack all those thoughts. Unfortunately that might mean revealing a few spoilers to the book so this is your fair warning to get out now whilst you can.
(Also apologies for the lack of picture, I left the book at home after travelling back to uni)
Firstly, whilst I do love a bit of romance, I did find the love triangle set up between Joseph with Mirabella and Jules to be totally unnecessary. A book can be good without a love triangle guys!! Not every highly captivating novel needs to have a guy or a girl fighting between two love interests.
Secondly, the book got overly complicated and I feel it, in fact, undelivered on what was supposed to be such a nasty premise about a battle to the death. Don't get me wrong, I still loved the narrative, but I wanted more action. The majority of the book was just the girls training for this big ceremony at the end. When Mirabella ran away I thought "Finally! Somethings happening. Maybe we'll see Mirabella finding her sisters and starting a rebellion against a ritualistic killing hierarchy." But no, that ended quicker than it began.
Also, when I say it was overly complicated, I mean that in the sense that there was too much information or build up events creating tension at once, only to be deflated like a sad balloon. It wasn't even the best build ups. I felt like there was a lacking in cliffhangers most of the way through.
One last thing on the annoying front. (Well, two) First off, who the f*** does Madrigal think she is? If anyone else has read this and knows what I'm talking about, especially towards the end of the novel- then please hit me up because I have so much I want to say about her. And lastly, (and in the goal of pure honesty) I found both Jules and Mirabella's characters to be slightly annoying. I don't know if this was because of the whole love triangle between them but partly, for Mirabella at least, she didn't stand up for herself very well. Even though she's supposed to be in charge, she never takes charge and instead has to watch those around her get hurt.
Now to bring some good into this review, I loved the perspective changes happening throughout, although they did confuse me at first. With each chapter, you never really know which character is going to be focused on. So even if it was a chapter, say about Katherine- the poisoner sister, it might not have actually focused on her in that chapter but perhaps her teacher/council leader Natalie. I thought this added in some great insight into the book. By not having one strict voice there was so much more scheming we could see and I loved it.
Katherine's character. I have mixed thoughts. Throughout most of the novel she seemed very determined in herself despite what everyone else said about her and honestly, that takes balls so I have big props for her. And I really enjoyed her and Pieytr's love story. I'm just not a fan of how it got left between them at the end, it was both shocking and disappointing.
And last but not the least, my favourite part of the whole novel.... Arsinoe. I know some people may not have always liked her character throughout but I will hand-on-heart go down swinging saying that I loved her character. She was just so bad ass and focused and she didn't need a relationship to define herself. She was happy with things the way they were and she made such an amazing friend to people. Personally, out of the three I think she got the worst end of it all. But I hope to see her come back even better and stronger in the next novel.
In total, I give the book a 3/5 stars.
Phew! That was a long review so well done if you made it this far down. Feel free to comment or drop me a message either here or on instagram @onceuponabookgeek . Let's chat all things books :)