So I picked up this book because it's sequel came up as "Books like Red Queen" and I wanted to read the first book so the second one made sense. And yes you need to read the first to understand the second.

 

This book has a lot going for it, strong main character and strong female secondary characters. There is next to no girl hate in here and what is there is regulated to a few lines on one part of the book. The only drawback to this is the amount of violent woman death. Thankfully two are dead before the story starts, Seraphina's mother and Lars' mother. Another dies due to being poisoned. While the death of men remains low, one is stabbed, two are beheaded. One before the story.

 

So what about diversity. We have the county of Porphyry in the north which is known philosophy and technology, these are where the black people are. We get Millie and Abdo from this region. Millie who is a minor character and Abdo a minor to major character.

Don't think we have much in terms of any other representation.

As for the MOGAI front, we have the word "daanite" which comes from Daan and Masha, the martyred gay lovers that were then sainted.

 

That one thing with the story is that religion runs deep through it. It's made up by reeks a bit of Catholicism. Thankfully there's a glossary in the end of the book.

 

Overall I enjoyed it, it has it's moments but overall a much better read than Red Queen.

So this book came up in a "Books like Red Queen" shelf. So I decided to see if any were as bad or better than Red Queen.

 

Compared to Red Queen this book is WAY BETTER. Doesn't have the misogyny of Red Queen and certainly the world characters are better written.

 

Now about the book itself. Considering everything is LimerOS, AuranOS, WesterO-- wait that last one isn't in this book. Yeah, basically this is trying to be Game of Thrones Lite or something. Without all the rape rape rape. I'm not certain if it does or not because Game of Thrones should disappear forever so I'll never read it.

Lest to say the map is dull, 3 kingdoms stacked on top of each other. One king is EVIL, one is... a drunkard? We Really don't get to learn too much about him other than his daughter is an exotic snake dancer because EXOTIC. Only what she's doing isn't so exotic. And she (I think) is dark skinned, but so is Jonas and probably most of the other Paelsians. aaand TRAGIC GOOD? KING.

Really this book tries to set itself up for greatness only it feels like the entire book is buildup with no real resolution.

The female characters are kinda flat and weak of course. The men are.. evil. The other characters are too enigmatic to really care about so you forget they exist until they have their one page exposition.

Overall this is not a book I like. I don't like all the killing and the death... there's a lot of dying in here for named characters. I wanted to get into the fantasy magical side of the book, but this is more about how the kings are going to kill each other off. It was just boring and didn't seem to spend enough time on the character that matter than the characters that were just an engine to move the characters we really wanted to care about.

While original tale is too long for reading aloud this retelling is perfect for introducing a child with the brave Gerda. [b:The Snow Queen|1069333|The Snow Queen|Lesley Sims|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347328306s/1069333.jpg|2535765] is very short but it doesn't miss the adventure & friendship spirit.

[b:The Snow Queen|2528256|The Snow Queen|Hans Christian Andersen|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1357421470s/2528256.jpg|2535765] is not retelling /adoption of [a:Hans Christian Andersen's|6378|Hans Christian Andersen|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1183230200p2/6378.jpg] fairy tale, this is just a translation. :) It doesn't have such an amazing illustrations as [b:The Snow Queen. Hans Christian Andersen|10421229|The Snow Queen. Hans Christian Andersen|Naomi Lewis|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1359386034s/10421229.jpg|2535765] but at least the text is not butchered, and that's more important.

I'm so surprised by how much I liked this book, but it hooked me in right from the beginning. I'm glad I read the description when I first reserved the ebook from the library, then conveniently forgot about it, not looking at it before actually reading the book. The description gives SO much away, and I thoroughly enjoyed the path in figuring out what everyone was and how things were connected.

The good: I loved Luke when he was cocky, playful, teasing, and loving. Later on when he started getting insecure, looking at the ground a lot or avoiding Dee's eyes, I didn't love it. I loved the depth of his character though.

I loved Dee. She was extremely likeable, and there honestly was not a point of time in the book when she annoyed me or seemed out of character. The author did a great job with her.

The bad: James felt like the author was just trying to add a love triangle. I loved the idea of him as a friend, and then she goes and makes him in love with her, and Dee never knew before she met Luke? Too questionable. Either make him more a part of the story or leave out the infatuation.

The ending went way too quickly for my preference. We barely saw any part of the queen, and she was killed SO easily. After building and building how strong she was and how the fight between them was going to be epic, it was meh. Disappointing.

I still rate it a 4, and I'm excited to begin the sequel tonight.