Review of The Queen of the Tearling

The Queen of the Tearling is possibly the longest book I've ever read, in terms of things that happened as compared to length of book in which they took to happen. I'll construct a handy plot overview for you (based on memory; it may not be entirely in order). Feel free to skip to the end of it after you've gotten the general idea. Here goes:

Kelsea is picked up from the cottage.

Kelsea rides.

Kelsea camps.

Kelsea travels some more (riding, of course).

Assassins come.

The idiotic love interest happens.

Kelsea travels (still on her horse).

Kelsea arrives.

Kelsea commits idiotic acts of war.

Javel fails to be interesting.

Assassins come.

Thomas whines.

The idiotic love interest has a POV for some reason I still haven't figured out.

The Red Queen rapes some people.

Kelsea has some vision/ dream things.

Thomas whines some more.

Javel not only fails to be interesting, but fails to interest even the other characters in the novel.

The Red queen rapes some more people.

Kelsea insults Lady Andrew's hair.

Kelsea has more vision/dream things.

Kelsea insults Lady Andrew's hair again.

Assassins come.

Thomas whines yet more.

The idiotic love interest happens AGAIN.

Kelsea has yet more vision/ dream things.

Kelsea travels.

Javel has a cute story about his wife.

Kelsea's still traveling.

Javel might do something almost decent... nah, he's too tired. Maybe tomorrow.

Hasn't Kelsea's horse collapsed of exhaustion yet?

Everything's on fire. Except the idiotic love interest... more's the pity.

The Red Queen sacrifices some children. Should she attack Kelsea? Nope, plot convenience advises against it. Oh, well, back to raping people.

Kelsea changes her name.

The idiotic love interest gives her a present- you guessed it! A head on a stick! How romantic.

Kelsea gives a really bad speech.

The book ends. I was so bored by this point that I don't remember how. Nothing interesting.

Doesn't that sound like something you want to read? No? Well, I not only had to read that plot overview, I had to wade through the book to write it. It was almost as fun as it sounds.

There were moments where the writing was okay, and the beginning was promising, but the book never went anywhere. Bad world-building- some dude named William Tear took people on ships to a random continent that just sort of appeared. Everything sciencey died, except for indoor plumbing, for some reason no one understands. Luckily, we still have Harry Potter, so all is not lost. That is the extent of the worldbuilding. I'm not kidding. Oh, and there's magic. Because it was totally necessary for the plot (actually, it wasn't, so I'm still lost on why there's magic and where it came from).

Kelsea is a jerk who spends her spare time insulting Lady Andrew's hair. Oh, and stealing her stuff. But that's okay, because her hair's ugly and she's old anyway. The Fetch (more commonly known as idiotic love interest in this blog) is some weird thief/ assassin with a secret past who just sort of floats around not being at all awesome, whatever the author seems to think. Javel is kind of okay but mostly just boring, since he doesn't do anything interesting aside from tell the one cute story about him and his wife. The Red Queen (or the Mort Queen, if you prefer) appears to be a bad ripoff of the evil queen from the Obsidian Trilogy, but so watered down that she's even more ridiculous than Queen Savilla (who at least was ridiculously overdone in style). Everyone else just hovers around the edges, sometimes popping up to be killed or disobey yet another of Kelsea's orders (sure, she's the queen... wait, that means we have to listen to her? seems to be their main attitude).

So, yeah, basically it was awful. I don't recommend it at all. The entire book should have taken maybe a hundred pages, not more than 400.

Thanks for reading.

-HH