It’s with a heavy heart that I have to admit that I just could not finish this book. That’s not something I say often. It’s very rare that I can’t even force myself through to the end, but that was absolutely the case with one of my most anticipated books of 2016, Three Dark Crowns. I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I began reading that ARC July 2, and it’s now the end of September. I’ve lost count of how many times I tried to start over and give the book another chance, but it’s just not working for me, so instead of doing my usual kind of review (things I liked, things I didn’t like, overall rating), I’m going to talk about why exactly this book was such a struggle for me.
Release Date: September 20, 2016
Summary (via Goodreads)
Every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born: three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.
But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins. The last queen standing gets the crown.
If only it was that simple. Katharine is unable to tolerate the weakest poison, and Arsinoe, no matter how hard she tries, can’t make even a weed grow. The two queens have been shamefully faking their powers, taking care to keep each other, the island, and their powerful sister Mirabella none the wiser. But with alliances being formed, betrayals taking shape, and ruthless revenge haunting the queens’ every move, one thing is certain: the last queen standing might not be the strongest…but she may be the darkest.
Why it Didn’t Work:
I think my biggest problem with this text was the point of view. It’s told in present tense but the POV is third person omniscient. There’s a lot of head hopping, and I don’t just mean between the three sisters. In any given scene, you’re getting insights into the minds of all the secondary characters as well, and trust me, there are a LOT of secondary characters. From a writer’s standpoint, it was all “telling” and not enough “showing”. It’s unfortunate, but I often found myself far more interested in some of the secondary characters rather than any of the sisters. I never really got a true sense of the characters, and they all sort of became interchangeable to me. I worried that the point of view was just something that confusing to only me, but I let a fellow librarian take a look at a small excerpt to see how she’d react, and I believe the exact words were, “How are you even supposed to read that?!” It’s difficult to keep track of where the story is going. I’m sure for some there will be no problem at all, but now that I’ve given up and looked at the reviews from fellow bloggers, I can see I’m not alone in my confusion. I anticipate this being a big reason other readers will have to mark this one DNF.
The premise gives us promises of a bloody battle and deceit between sisters, but really, there’s not much of anything going on. The story bounces around from one training session to the next, which isn’t exactly the dark game of life or death that I had been so looking forward to. Mostly we just get two sisters lamenting about the fact that their powers are nonexistant and the other sister just sitting around making some nasty weather. That’s about it. No real excitement. Nobody getting their hands dirty. Nobody really making me care whether they live or die.
I made it over a quarter of the way through this book before I absolutely had to give up and just mark it as “did not finish”. It’s disappointing, to say the least, because when a book is really, really good, I finish it in a matter of hours. Three months and multiple attempts later, I just couldn’t make this one happen. I think that speaks volumes.
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