This book was deeply creative and I enjoyed it. The world building was fun and the quest Fallon took was equally enjoyable, even if I had to sit back and shake my head at her hubris.
I am not going to count this a spoiler since it’s in the blurb for the novel that if Fallon frees the crows she’ll be made queen, but I am going to say… I wish the character took ten seconds to really contemplate what being a queen would mean. This is where my head shaking started and I was torn between really liking Fallon and kind of… loathing her.
Granted, the character is described as being 22 years old and it’s been a minute since I was that age, so I tried very, very hard to remember how self-absorbed I was back then. Try as I might, however, I cannot say I ever in my wildest dreams wished to be a queen. A princess, maybe, with the pretty gowns and the knight in shining armor where we equally saved one another (that equally bit has always been big on my priorities) but never the actual queen.
You know, where you RULED people.
And they were forced to do your will because QUEEN.
The sheer hubris it took for the character to not only picture herself as queen, but actively begin pursuing the crows to see this matter come about, really irked me. To the point I put the book down twice to rant at my husband and son, both of whom deserve medals for their patience with me. I could have forgiven Fallon for this hubris if she had battled with the idea more, or if she had leaned harder on the whole loving Prince Dante thing, making her elevation to queen status more of a sacrifice she was willing to make to be with him than a personal goal.
I am sure there are people out there who are going to decry this opinion because “Why shouldn’t a woman have ambitions and want to be a queen?”
To them I say… because becoming a queen forces other people to bow. And any time you put yourself in a position to have power over other people, you ought to take at least five minutes to check yourself, which Fallon never did.
Again, if she had done this I would have forgiven her, but she never does, which leaves me in a weird love-hate relationship with the character.
Ahem.
I digress.
Despite my love-hate relationship with Fallon, I enjoyed the book. She makes mistakes in her love life that I can relate to, and you can clearly see where the narrative is heading for the second book in that regard. The world building is interesting, the characters are complicated with equally complicated motivations, and you feel like there’s real history with them.
4 out of 5 stars.
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