GIVE ME ALL THE DARK TONES OF THIS BOOK!
Excellent is the word that comes to mind when describing A River of Royal Blood. Even though certain themes are blatant when dealing with topics such as race, it is the care and delicate description of internal emotions and complicated dynamics that kept me reading.
However, I will say that there are a lot of moments where it felt like the emotional aspects of the novel took place off screen, making it feel more like I was being told what happened versus seeing it unfold which was a little annoying. Outside of that I thought the characters, world, and narrative were very engaging.
I can also forgive the book for having a plotline that made the ending easy to guess, this is YA after all and this is not my first high fantasy rodeo so certain aspects of the book stood out like a sore thumb. The only thing I cannot forgive has nothing to do with the story, pacing, world-building, etc. but the cover. WTF is up with the cover of this book? Based on the descriptions of the characters IN THE BOOK the cover looks like it was sourced out to someone who had nothing to go on but maybe the back cover blurb?
Publishers please make the covers of the books classy...honestly, the cover of this book made it so I didn't even want to read it at first. I'm happy I did but still.....
Excellent is the word that comes to mind when describing A River of Royal Blood. Even though certain themes are blatant when dealing with topics such as race, it is the care and delicate description of internal emotions and complicated dynamics that kept me reading.
However, I will say that there are a lot of moments where it felt like the emotional aspects of the novel took place off screen, making it feel more like I was being told what happened versus seeing it unfold which was a little annoying. Outside of that I thought the characters, world, and narrative were very engaging.
I can also forgive the book for having a plotline that made the ending easy to guess, this is YA after all and this is not my first high fantasy rodeo so certain aspects of the book stood out like a sore thumb. The only thing I cannot forgive has nothing to do with the story, pacing, world-building, etc. but the cover. WTF is up with the cover of this book? Based on the descriptions of the characters IN THE BOOK the cover looks like it was sourced out to someone who had nothing to go on but maybe the back cover blurb?
Publishers please make the covers of the books classy...honestly, the cover of this book made it so I didn't even want to read it at first. I'm happy I did but still.....