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4.5
I’ve been hearing great things about this series since pre-publication, and I’m so thrilled that I finally picked up the first book because I absolutely loved it. The gist of the story is this – Kelsea was raised in isolation by foster parents after the death of her mother, Queen Elyssa. Upon Kelsea’s nineteenth birthday, she becomes Queen herself and has to make a perilous journey from her home to the castle where she is to rule and live for the rest of her life. There are many people who wish Kelsea dead, primarily her uncle, who is currently Regent and hopes to keep his hold on the throne, and secondarily the Red Queen, a sorceress and ruler of the kingdom Mortmesne, who years ago struck some kind of bargain with Kelsea’s mother, the horrors of which Kelsea only learns upon her entrance to the castle. Kelsea is the kind of queen this land has never seen before – intensely smart, bookish, kind, interested in taking care of her people rather than having them take care of her. She must figure out a way to navigate how she wants to rule while at the same time keeping the Red Queen and her uncle out of her kingdom and her people’s lives.So this book is very plot-heavy and the beginning is VERY confusing. I almost gave up after fifty pages but I persevered because I liked Kelsea so much, and man am I glad I kept going. The thing that makes it confusing at first is that Kelsea was raised in isolation and therefore knows almost nothing about her world. As she gets information and history about the world in which she lives, so too does the reader, with things becoming more clear about a hundred pages in (out of six hundred). Even after finishing the first book, I’m still left with a ton of questions about this world, so hopefully even more information will be given to the reader in books two and three.Anyway – this book was SO GOOD. I absolutely loved Kelsea; loved her bookishness, her seriousness, her kindness and willingness to do the right thing no matter what the cost might be. She did this whole fake it til you make it thing where she knew what she didn’t know (almost everything) and just made decisions based on her instincts and the advice of the very few people she was able to trust – and as each decision produced fruitful results, her confidence increased.As I said, The Queen of the Tearling is extremely plot-heavy, with a LOT of events happening within its six hundred pages. It’s the type of read that never really slows down – just when you think one situation is resolved, something else presents itself. There are also a lot of characters to get to know, but what I loved was that Kelsea was getting to know everyone right along with the reader. There’s something uniquely special about the relationship between the reader and the protagonist here, as both are in the dark about pretty much everything until someone explains it – this element of the book brings the reader in even closer to Kelsea, as you genuinely feel for her, being so lost and unsure of herself in this whole new situation that she could have never imagined for herself.I absolutely loved the adventure that was The Queen of the Tearling. I have to warn readers that this is NOT a young adult book – this is firmly in the adult category as there are many deeply disturbing things that happen throughout the book. The themes of the novel are also very mature and probably best for older teens as opposed to the younger set. I am so glad I finally picked up this book and really looking forward to reading the second book in this series.
