Red Queen meets Hunger Games + Divergent
Imagine the world of "Red Queen" with districts from "The Hunger Games" or factions from "Divergent" but each divided by a queen. "Four Dead Queens" is a essentially a YA novel influenced by its predecessors.
Under each faction (quadrant) is a queen and each quadrant have their own ideals and ways of living. For instance, Iris ruling Archia is a queen ruling the land of people who are hardworking. They don't care much for technology/advancement. They're basically the Amity in this book. On the other hand, Corra ruling Eonia is the Erudite faction as they value technology and medicine.
Now that I covered some world-building, it's time to focus on the characters. The main character is Keralie and she's basically a nobody. A nobody trying to discover what she wants to do with her life (typical YA). She reminded me of Mare except the fact that she didn't complain a lot especially with her life circumstance. Keralie was also enamored with Mackiel who reminded me a bit of Kaz Brekker. The difference is that Mackiel annoyed me because of his constant abuse of the word "darlin." Another character is Varin and he reminded me of Four from Divergent. Later on, you realize that there's more depth to his character than meets the eye.
The only thing I wasn't a fan of (in this book) was the constant character change. The character development seemed to have happened out of nowhere or it felt fake to me. Even if this had been the case, the characters still fell flat especially with their quick change of world views and allegiances. Actually, I don't remember liking any character from this book. I'm not a writer but I just don't see the motivation/s for some characters to actually "change."
All in all, while this book had been an interesting and engaging read, I felt that it was kind of disappointing. I had high hopes for this book. I mean, it's a good debut novel as I still gave it 3/5, however it just wasn't memorable.
Under each faction (quadrant) is a queen and each quadrant have their own ideals and ways of living. For instance, Iris ruling Archia is a queen ruling the land of people who are hardworking. They don't care much for technology/advancement. They're basically the Amity in this book. On the other hand, Corra ruling Eonia is the Erudite faction as they value technology and medicine.
Now that I covered some world-building, it's time to focus on the characters. The main character is Keralie and she's basically a nobody. A nobody trying to discover what she wants to do with her life (typical YA). She reminded me of Mare except the fact that she didn't complain a lot especially with her life circumstance. Keralie was also enamored with Mackiel who reminded me a bit of Kaz Brekker. The difference is that Mackiel annoyed me because of his constant abuse of the word "darlin." Another character is Varin and he reminded me of Four from Divergent. Later on, you realize that there's more depth to his character than meets the eye.
The only thing I wasn't a fan of (in this book) was the constant character change. The character development seemed to have happened out of nowhere or it felt fake to me. Even if this had been the case, the characters still fell flat especially with their quick change of world views and allegiances. Actually, I don't remember liking any character from this book. I'm not a writer but I just don't see the motivation/s for some characters to actually "change."
All in all, while this book had been an interesting and engaging read, I felt that it was kind of disappointing. I had high hopes for this book. I mean, it's a good debut novel as I still gave it 3/5, however it just wasn't memorable.