Book Review: Three Dark Crowns

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Oh, I'm having a hard time choosing a rating for this one. Part of me thinks, it was great, fun story, interesting plot and the other part of me is sitting here thinking ... who was who again?

So, I started this about five months ago and got about 20% of the way through it only to stop reading. Why? Because I couldn't keep track of the characters. There are too many. There cannot be three main characters in a book and each of those characters have 3-5 important secondary characters along with building a new world. Even without the world building, which was adequate I think, I don't think one can keep track of that many characters. This isn't a Game of Thrones, this is a YA novel.

My number one complaint in adult Fantasy novels is that the characters get totally out of hand, and that is the problem here. Is each character interesting, each plot line holds my attention ... but I was still confused so much of the time.


A BIG part of this was a poor reader. I was listening to the audio version and she didn't have different character voices. All characters were read in the same voice. Um, hey reader, isn't it your job to do a little vocal acting here? I guess not.

Okay, so plot was interesting, triplet queens, but only one can become THE QUEEN and she does it by killing her sisters using her magical power. That is an intersting plot. A little creepy, but interesting.

At the end of the day it was okay. Book two just got checked out to my Overdrive account and if it is still there when I have "nothing better to read" I'll listen to it. However, I might not. I don't think it was good enough to enjoy book two.