Collect The Queen Of The Tearling (The Queen Of The Tearling, #1) Written By Erika Johansen Visible In Softcover
this reread, I definitely have to bump up my rating to a fullstars, Kelsea is one of my alltime favorite characters, and I have spent so long over the last few days gushing about how much I love every part of this book.
The character development: amazing. The world: original and fantastic, The political elements: EVERYTHING I WANT IN POLITICAL FANTASY,
I could honestly gush for hours about this book, I can't wait to finish the series,
./
Absolutely fantastic, I desperately want the second book, This book has rendered me speechless, Oh, my bloody god. If you could see me now, I'm already having withdrawals, because the moment I finished, the first thing I blurted out was, "I need book two.
STAT. "
I avoided this book like the plague, Shortly before its release, one star reviews were popping out left and right, many from my trusted friends who share the same likes and dislikes as me.
Because of that, I didn't want to read it, It was absolutely at the bottom of my TBR, but the other day, I went to a bookstore, I grabbed a cup of coffee from the Starbucks corner on therd floor, walked around, and saw this beautiful cover reaching out to me from its lonely shelf.
And so, I bought it,
BestDecisionEver.
I totally adored this novel, I expected to hate it, to bash it, to go shehulk on it, but the more I read, the more engrossed I became, until I was like "fuck you" to the rising sun and continued on reading despite the growing Gucci bags under my eyes.
I may have lost precious beauty sleep over it, but I don't really care, because this is one of my favorite books right now, The plot was awesome, the political intrigue insane, the heroine phenomenal, and the romance ALMOST NONEXISTENT, Which made me ship two people aggressively, because there were hints and gestures and I yearned for them even more because they weren't bloody enough.
Forgive me if I resemble a mad woman right now, but this book just truly blew my mind away at how awesome and riveting it was.
First of all, Kelsea, If I were to put a list of my top ten heroines of all time, she no doubt would be one of them, She's brainy, intelligent, strongwilled and courageous in every sense of the word, facing with hard resolve the troubles and problems brought about by her inheriting a broken and corrupt kingdom.
She was hidden away from the rest of the world for the first nineteen years of her life, and on herth birthday, is whisked away by a group of knights to escort her back to her kingdom where the nobles have everything to lose with her on the throne.
I don't know about you, guys, but if that were me, I would've had a nervous breakdown,
But not Kelsea! She may have been sheltered, hidden away in the deepest parts of a forest, but she was raised to be kind and to be fierce, to be sympathetic and to be just, to be cautious and to take action, all the traits that monarchs before her lacked, all the traits her kingdom needs.
I absolutely love how she fought through her insecurities, how she proved wrong those who underestimated her, how she stood up and made a name for herself in a society where females were looked down upon, how she became the kind of role model girls should emulate.
Yes, she is far from perfect, but she tries her best and she goes against the tides and the waves and the tsunamis with everything she has, and that, my friends, is admirable.
Fucking admirable.
And the political intrigue! There is enough here to make you giddy, The kingdom is broken beyond comprehension that it's hard to know who to trust and who to be wary of, There are certainly a lot of key players here that we would need to keep an eye on in the second book, which makes things so bloody exciting.
I do have to say that the setting is very special, though, The best description for it would be a "backward future", where some disaster has fallen upon earth which is not known yet and the survivors went elsewhere and established a more medieval way of life.
I'd understand if some people may see it as too vague, and it can feel that way sometimes, but in my case, this aspect never really bothered me that much because the characters and the plot were riveting enough to take my mind off that issue, which is quite a feat because I'm usually very anal about this! All I can say is, the way this book was written makes the slow reveal of the world a pleasant and leisurely experience.
And I mean, come on, my mind was too occupied cheering and fretting for our awesome Kelsea! wink wink, nudge nudge
And did you know that the romance here is almost nonexistent Of course, our Kelsea talks about how handsome her guards are, but as someone who hasn't seen many people in her life, you can't really blame her! And she may have a crush on a mysterious figure, but aside from these things, it doesn't take center stage at all.
She is surrounded by knights, but they're the types who actually do their jobs and don't flirt around, They are all focused on their task, and that is to protect the Queen, Of course, there are many interactions between them, especially with Mace the Captain of the Guard who is old enough to be her father who she establishes a mentorlike relationship with and Pen who isyears her senior who is her close guard, but they never got close to cheesy.
They are all meaningful interactions that are vital to her character development, But, that doesn't mean there aren't any hints! Of course there are, but they are far and few between, which makes it even better, because the shipper in me became aggressive hunting for them It also made me even more excited for the next book!
P.
S. I ship her with Pen, OMG.
All in all, Queen of the Tearling is awesome and I'm glad I gave it a chance, because last night this book gave me such a high like you wouldn't believe check out my Twitter for my incoherent rave tweets.
Where is my book two!! Really interesting plot, but went a little slow for me! Here's my full booktalk! sitelink youtube. com/watchvDtCU Feb '
sitelinkblog sitelinkgoodreads
Disclaimer: This is a review of an uncorrected Advanced Reader Copy,
Long rant ahead, folks, Don't say I didn't warn you,
So some time in the future of earth, when the world has gotten so messed up and irredeemable, a man named William Tear gathered up
his people along with doctors, scientists, and other citizens of some value, and took them on a huge boat.
With the intention of building a new democratic civilization founded on world order and, . . socialism William Tear and his people undertook the Great Crossing, where they crossed from, . . America and settled in the new, unknown land of, . . England
like for reals, Did the future magically grow new, unexplored continents I mean, where did they sail off to What happened to the continents they sailed away from Did they just swim into a void and pop up in a completely different universe like what is happening here guys, like help me out.
The people, having learnt nothing from the past, decided that a monarchy is absolutely the best way to achieve William Tear's socialist dreams, but unfortunately,
.
. . it ended in bloody disaster with the assassination of Jonathan Tear
upon which the Raleigh line took over the throne, and this envisioned utopia eventually devolved into something that took everyone but the reader by surprise.
Then something about a war, a spineless queen, a formidable enemy, and enter our special Kelsea,
Nothing of much importance happened, This book served more as an introduction to Kelsea and her ascension to the throne, and how amazing she is at it,
I won't rehash the rest of the book, because I put myself through the pain of reading it once, and I won't do it again, My experience reading this book was largely inexplicable, . . something kept grating on my nerves until I sat down and actually pinpointed what it was that bothered me about the whole thing,
Now that I've figured it out, it's going to take rather long, so I'll point out the main issues I had with this book:
Convenient and Arbitrary Plot Devices
Trivialization of IMPORTANT STUFF
Appeal to Popular Sentiment
Weak and Clichéd Characterization
gtgtCONVENIENT AND ARBITRARY PLOT DEVICESltlt
Aspects of the world were inconsistent at times.
People had talents or gifts only when they were convenient to the plot:
Andalie could only foresee events to the extent that it does not undermine the suspense in the narrative.
Lazarus could sense people's intentions and loyalty, and yet this talent disappears when it comes to the traitor amongst his men, or direct attacks upon Her Majesty's self.
How convenient that TWO of Kelsea's most loyal followers happen to even have such useful talents to begin with!
The Queen of the Tearling's plot conveniences are not limited to its characters, however.
The whole history of the realm was built upon convenience ever since the Great Crossing, where each person was allowed to bring one book, and yet no one thought of bringing something remotely sciencey.
Instead, they brought The Hobbit and JK Rowling and Lord of the Rings,
So of course, how convenient that the doctors and scientists practically all died during some sort of terrible act of nature during the Crossing, How convenient that all former knowledge is gone, leaving us with a future filled with swords and horses and legit birth control and cigarettes,
Even what technologies are "forgotten" and what has been magically "resurrected" were completely arbitrary and at the author's whim, Give me a God. Damn. break.
gtgtTRIVIALIZATION OF IMPORTANT STUFFltlt
Now, I'll let you know that I have much patience for boring, tedious, BilboBagginsThereandBackAgain sort of journeys.
In fact, I love it when it is done right when it sucks you in to this magical realm full of elves and dwarves, even though you never spend the journey meeting a single one.
When it gives you an understanding of the world, its history, its people and many cultures, . .
The Queen of the Tearling Not so much, I kept waiting and waiting for a shed of light to reveal to me what on God's gracious earth happened to, . . well, Earth and how it got to where they were now, but it never came,
The novel completely brushed aside the "minor details" as if it didn't matter, Well guess what, you can't just make allusions to the London Bridge, and New Europe, and not tell us what happened to Old Europe.
It made the whole worldbuilding rather irrelevant, really, What's the point of fashioning your novel after our very own earth, when the fate and history of our own world has fuck all to do with your story Why not just come up with a completely new universe, slap dash your realms and characters and history into it, and be done with it all
I suspect more will be revealed in the second book it is a trilogy, after all, but by that time, frustrations are pretty damn high.
One of the purposes of a first book is to build the foundations of your world, Well, we barely have a single pillar to hold The Tearling up,
Other smaller plot details were also largely ignored and "explained away" with a single sentence, The author would much prefer using up word count on internal musings and philosophical reflections, rather than spending it on actual worldbuilding and characterization,
It would take far too much time for us to come to trust Andalie through actual good character building skills, so instead the author takes the easy way out and uses Lazarus's "peoplesensing" skills to provide yet another plotdevice and add Andalie into Kelsea's most trusted followers without even a second thought.
gtgtAPPEAL TO POPULAR SENTIMENTltlt
Oh Lord how this one frustrated me,
I'm not talking about the logical fallacy, I'm talking about how this book tried so hard to appeal to our emotions and contemporary attitudes, Forget namedropping Rowling or Tolkien's works of arts, . . those are minor details that I can roll my eyes at and move on,
Instead, let's focus more on Kelsea,
Sidenote, You're gonna have Emma Watson play plainalmostugly Kelsea Yeah okay,
Kelsea is this plain and not in the "isactuallybeautifulbutshedoesn'tknowit" kind of wayyearold girl, who fights for her people, has compassion for the poor, and is concerned for the wellbeing and empowerment of women.
So believe me how guilty I feel for not liking her one bit, I must be some kind of devilspawn,
But every once in a while, Kelsea comes up with these gems that make me think hang on a sec, no I don't feel bad about hating her:
How could a woman who looked so old still place so much importance on being attractive.
. . she saw now that there was something far worse than being ugly: being ugly and thinking you were beautiful,
There are just so many things wrong with that one, singular sentence that once I read it, I stopped in my tracks and thought, Wait.
This is a joke, right, The author deliberately made such an abhorrently judgmental, hypocritical I'll get to that character, Like, on purpose,
But no. Kelsea and the way she is written just takes itself so seriously that there could be no possible way we are supposed to dislike her for one bit.
Every single entity on the planet likes her, except for the agents of evil, whom we are automatically supposed to disprove of, Every single person values her courage, selflessness, and genuinely treats her like everything she does is so amazing, that there is no possible way us readers are supposed to condemn her for any trivial thing.
And then it all hit me, and I realized exactly what is wrong with Kelsea,
We are supposed to like her, not because she is an incredibly written character, who goes through hardships we can relate to, who has to make hard choices and sacrifices.
We are supposed to like her, simply for being the only human being with a shred of decency on the planet, It isn't that she's so spectacularly kindhearted and intelligent and cunning, it's just that everyone around her is so infinitely unlikeable, it makes her look good.
We are supposed to be as "wow"ed and amazed as the villagers and Guards of Tear that this noble, caring girl suddenly pops out to lead them but you know what, I don't buy it.
Your previous leaders and figures of authority have really sucked, and I'm sorry, But don't try to pass off Kelsea as an incredible character, because technique and narrativewise, she isn't,
The book tries to appeal to its readers, willing us to like Kelsea because of her humanitarian qualities, Unfortunately, you don't get a cookie for upholding basic human fucking rights, Or shall I also thank the million men out there for not raping me
So I'm not falling for your cheap ploy, Johansen.
gtgtWEAK AND CLICHED CHARACTERIZATIONltlt
What you can expect in practically any fantasy novel nowadays:
ALL nobles are shitheads
The Church is corrupt EVIL incarnate
The Kingdom is secretly poor
There is an evil, magical enemy somewhere out there who for some reason hasn't killed you yet although you pose a great threat
You probably don't know who your mother / father is
Speaking of the church, I realize it is all the rage nowadays to jab at religions and people who believe in "a fictional character watching from the sky", and the more and louder you jab, the more points you get.
The Queen of the Tearling seems to be of the same mind, and as demonizing the Church is so infashion nowadays, that is exactly what Johansen did.
Don't get me wrong reading about atheist characters, reading about their thought processes and often musings against religion is fine by me, But there is a point where you say enough!
", . . If you can tolerate my arguments, you're free to minister to or convert any other occupant of this Keep, not excepting the pigs and chickens, "
"You make sport of my religion, Lady,", . .
"I make sport of all things inconsistent, Father, "
Andalie pursed her lips, . . , "I'm not a religious woman, Lady, I'm sorry if it pains you, but I believe in no god, and even less do I believe in any church, "
"How do you expect anyone to believe in your God in these times"
"I believe in my God, Majesty.
"
"Then you're a fool, "
SHUT UP ALREADY,
I get it, You don't believe in God, and you think everyone who does is delusional, You don't need to shove it in my face every three seconds hint: you can also proselytize atheism,
Just as I get annoyed by extreme moralization and religious undertones imbued in my novels, I also get annoyed by narratives and plot lines that overly proselytize against it.
The fact is, in this novel, all our cartoon "good guys" did not believe in religion or church, and practically all who did were intolerant or weak or otherwise irrelevant fools.
But getting back to characterization, while I was hoping for this dreadinspiring, almighty evil Red Queen, it was both laughable and disappointing to discover that her greatest, unique trait is being a sexaholic who constantly has sex with her sexy sex slaves.
That, right there, is pure evil, folks,
Sidenote: Two things come up whenever I hear the term "Red Queen":
so that's probably not the imagery Johansen was going for.
. .
However nothing could have sucked more than how Kelsea turned out,
She was so afraid of turning into her mother that she didn't realize there were far greater crimes than being vain,
Yeah, her mother liked pretty dresses, So fucking what. I like pretty dresses, I would like to sleep in a comfortable bed, That alone does not make you a bad person and neglectful ruler,
Kelsea was so terrified of becoming shallow, that she fails to realize that she already is shallow and I see now that there is something far worse than being shallow: being shallow and thinking you were profound.
She is so judgmental of everyone it baffles me, She is spiteful of all her nobles, she doesn't understand that those are the people backing your Kingdom up, fool!
Also, do you know why Eddard Stark died
Because he was too honorable and selfless.
To be a ruler, you must make sacrifices, You must make hard and abhorrent decisions every now and then, because you must think about the greater good, This does not mean letting your people get wheeled out to the enemy's territories and sold as slaves, but it does mean that, as a ruler, you do not have the luxury to spoil your conscience all the time.
Kelsea does exactly that, and what frustrates me to no end is that she gets away with it!
In the real Game of Thrones, you would've died a long time ago, Kel.
So PR people, please stop trying to pass this off as GoT, Nobody's buying it.
Oh, and also
my review of sitelinkThe Invasion of the Tearling,
my review of sitelinkThe Fate of the Tearling,
you can also read more reviews at sitelinkmy blog,
.