By: Rebecca Ross

# 1 in the Queen’s Rising series | 464 pages | Pub. 2018

Queen’s Rising at a Glance

• Overall Rating: ★★★
• Heroine: Queen of obliviousness
• Dude: Mr. Darcy meets Ezra Fitz
• Brutality: Nothing says welcome like decapitated, eyeball-less heads
• Uncomfortableness:  Almost as bad as the word “moist” *cringe*

Pairs Well With

Passionfruit Mojito

• Ice cubes
• 1 oz lime juice
• 4 fresh mint leaves
• 1 tablespoon passionfruit puree
• 2 oz white rum
• 2 oz club soda

     Beware. Spoilers are coming…

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Teagan’s Reactions

I have kind of mixed feels on Queen’s Rising. I think I can best describe my feelings on this book with four adjectives: meh, ridiculous, cringeworthy, and creepy. Or WTH did I just read??

The writing was fine and the worldbuilding was pretty but I didn’t feel like it measured up quality wise to most other YA fantasy novels. It also lacked a creative or interesting plot. I was just dangling from Ross’ hook the whole book hoping she’d pull me eventually but nope, never happened.

I have some serious issues with the men in this novel and sincerely doubt their intelligence and worth. First off what the hell is up with a grandfather letting his granddaughter grow up in an orphanage?! Dude. No. You can’t pull the “i love my granddaughter” card when you let her grow up in an orphanage and leave her completely unprepared for a life as the daughter of a bad dude. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Then Cartier pulls and Ezra and is 100% in love with this student. Gross. Not cool. And his love is basically a Mr. Darcy from 0 to 60 in like a chapter. There was no build up, finesse or romance. He basically slides into her DMs like “I love you and i’ll follow you anywhere.” I need to visit my chiropractor cuz this ridiculousness gave me serious whiplash. Also what kind of 25 year old man doesn’t know how to take off a ladies dress? Not falling for that one there, sweetheart.

“Which father should I betray? The one bound by passion, or the one bound by blood?”

I’m also sincerely creeped out by the yo-yo paternity games in this book. Insta-family love is apparently a thing? After 2 minutes of knowing each other her and Jourdain are declaring themselves King and Princess of the Father-Daughter dance and I’m like…

Yet, at the first sign of weakness Jourdain is like “JK go away daughter” and lets Brienna sacrifice herself to the big bad wolf. Which brings us to daddy #2 and again with the creepy family insta-love. *Cringe* Allenach gave me the serious creeps. And after a second of knowing his daughter he’s ready to declare her queen and “loves” her. I’m just not buying this and I’m also cringing at the weirdness of it all.

I really freaking hate the word passion. It’s the second worst “P” word in the English language. *shudders*. So I had a hard time reading this one because it’s used in every other sentence. And as a person with a bachelor’s in history I’m offended that all these so called historians seem to do is sit around and memorize lineage. No.

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Jess’s Reactions

Ok, so I just didn’t take any notes while reading this thing. Poor planning, yes, I know. I just didn’t get any strong emotions reading this. Love, hate, laughter… Nope. No feelings.

I will say that I am not a fan of the unanimous decisions these parents are making to ship their 10 year olds off to finishing school so that their children can become entertainment for others. Is this whole passion thing really the only way to become a doctor or a teacher? Does no one else go to school in Valenia? What does everyone else do for a living? That guy didn’t become a lawyer without some form of education…hopefully. Curiosity = 1, world building = 0.

Screw Brienna’s grandpa for shipping her off to school at 10. He gave her all of these daddy issues, not her actual dad. He just dropped her off and she seems to have zero issue with being abandoned. So she meets this creepy stranger and just magically he is the father she never had? Not even remotely believable.

Brienna made me laugh one time. When she said she killed off all of the characters in her play. My sick sense of humor would do the exact same thing. #emoforlife

I have to now talk about this whole teacher/student statutory thing happening. It really bothered me because he is what, 8 years older than her? No biggie once you are an adult, but Brienna is not anywhere near an adult, especially not emotionally. This girls version of fun is to balance a book on her head. Also, he decided he loved her when she was 14 right? So he was 22, which is not disgusting at all…oh wait. Even if I get by this whole age gap thing, it was just super convenient that Ross informs us that Brienna turned 18 literally right before she runs off to meet Cartier. #perfecttiming. I love PLL, but that was like a 7 year difference and Aria was far more grown up than Brienna. And Cartier is the worst boyfriend ever for letting her run into battle. That girl had two weeks of pseudo fencing lessons and then rides IN THE FRONT LINE!! In no world is that reasonable.

This whole thing made me more uncomfortable because the love story was dangling and I wanted it to happen, but it creeped me out at the same time. Don’t do that to me. Just. No.

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