Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake: I feel a tiny bit tricked

Three Dark Crowns 

by 

Kendare Blake

Every generation the Queen gives birth to triplets. These three girls belong to one sect of magic, the most common being elemental, poisoner and naturalist. Since they’re all equally inline for the thrown the three girls are brought up separately their goal to win the crown from their sisters. The winning of said crown means death for the losers. Yeah, that’s about it. it’s kind of straight forward snatch and stab kind of book.

Characters

Katherine: I’m doing her first because I’m a Katherine so we’ve got a connection. 

She’s a poisoner (which basically makes her a Slytherin). As a poisoner, she has the ability to digest every poisonous thing on the earth with zero consequences. At least that’s what is supposed to happen. Katherine’s poisoner gift is practically nonexistent and any immunity she currently has is a result of hard work building up immunities. If she wins she’ll be the six or seventh poisoner queen in a row I think. I’s somewhere around there.

Arsinoe: She’s the naturalist except she’s an exceptionally bad one. Incapable of opening even a single flower Arsinoe has all but accepted her inevitable death at the hands of one of her sisters. So instead of flowering plants or speaking to animals or interacting with a familiar Arsinoe turns to a dark form of magic that sounds kind of like voodoo? Yeah, I’m not really sold on that idea either.

Mirabella: is basically the only powerful one of the group. Able to call up storms and call down lightning and even shake the earth to the point of buildings crashing to the ground Mirabella is the clear winner next to her weak sisters. The problem is she can remember her sisters when they were young and still living together (which kind of begs the question of why they lived together in the first place but whatever). With these fond memories Mirabella, all but refuses to lay a hand on her sisters, much less cause their death.

Likes

The world was interesting: I mean it was needlessly stab-y but, interesting. There were these little islands and each one had a different set of magic people on them. Kind of like Avatar the Last Airbender actually. I got to say though, I’m not entirely sure why the sisters have to kill each other. Apparently, it’s supposed to be because they’re triplets so they’re all ‘equally in line for the throne’? well somebody doesn’t know how multiples work because there is such a thing as the eldest triplet. But, nope, we’ll just have them secretly battle each other to death. Yep that makes much more sense.  Maybe next time Y’all could just have a talent show or something.

70% of the time the characters were cool: Each of the sisters had their own lives, their own friends and ways of interacting with each other. Heck they all had different thoughts on having to murder each other. They were well rounded and usually unique and interesting. At least until their characters got completely sidetracked by romance. Yay.

Dislikes

I feel mildly tricked into reading it: the blurb promises three sisters duking it out for the crown. That . . . didn’t happen. In fact, the whole book was setting up ‘believable’ reasons (meaning contrived misunderstandings) for the sisters to hate each other. So, I’m sure the next book will be completely about fixing said misunderstandings. All in all, the whole thing felt kind of like a waste of time when I finally got to the end.

Why are there fifty different romantic subplots!? And this is the other 30%. Why, in a book about sisters being forced to kill each other, is there so many stupid romances. I just, why? There were so many other things to focus on and you chose to shove it all to the side for what? Creepy kissing? Creepier sex? This odd (gross) plot bunny was even more insulting given my above complaint. After all, I was promised ladies racing for the crown. Instead I got a bunch of girls standing around, explaining the rules and finding “love” (because let’s admit it we all know that none of these are going to last). Color me very sad.

I don’t know about this book guys. It wasn’t bad exactly, in fact while I was reading it I was perfectly entertained most of the time. But it certainly has problems with it. Most glaringly is that the entire book has no purpose! Nothing was accomplished except for setting up a string of misunderstanding to force the girls to not trust the others. Basically, they promised sisters fighting for the crown and I got ‘alright they all hate each other now. Come for the next book to see the explosions!!’ 

and that’s both frustrating and a tiny bit insulting.  I suppose I’ll just have to watch for the second on and hope for the best.