Ugggh, I loved this.

Full review:
https://wanderinglectiophile.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/review-the-queen-of-nothin... ( )

Jude is married to King Cardan and in exile in the human world, yearning for Faerie and Cardan and trying to make money and keep connections with the world of Faerie, it's really the only world she knows. When her twin sister arrives and declares that she has killed her husband in self-defence and needs Jude to pretend to be her in order to answer the questions honestly, only this starts a cascade that keeps getting complicated.

While there are books that continue in this world this is an interesting end to a sequence and the characters have interesting resolutions to what has gone on in the story. It will be interesting to see what happens next but there's nothing major that remains unresolved in the cycle here. ( )

This series crept up on me. It was very enjoyable, all the way through. But somehow, by the end of it, it had established itself as one of my favourite YA Fantasy series of all time. Jude and Carden are just so interesting and so dynamic.

Highly recommend it to anyone. ( )

How to ruin a decent YA fantasy series? Too much of a good thing easily gets out of control. A sappy love story, endless plots and twists just for the sake of it, characters acting out of character, too much family drama, crowned with a very predictable ending.

Holly Black's The Folk of the Air series seemed a perfect guilty pleasure. But, I'm disappointed. All the ingredients are there, there's just too much of everything and without any significant meaning. I feel this last installment is rushed and just a big mess. There is no big, epic conclusion that I thought we could expect after the end of the second book. It's just - a whimper instead of a bang. It was fun while there was hope that another plot twist will turn this into something more palatable (and there were some good ones, at least in the beginning). As I was getting closer to the end, and I stopped hoping, I realized I didn't care where this would go cause I had no emotional connection to any of the characters.


The whole Locke storyline is wasted. He could've been such a force in the last installment.
But, the thing that really threw me off was the whole Cardan serpent thing. What lazy writing and insult to the readers! I couldn't believe this crap. At that point, I almost stopped reading and I read this only because of the time I invested by that point.
It's like throwing away all the politics of the first two books with all their characters into rubbish. It also took away space that Cardan could've occupied in this book, as one of the more interesting characters. His relationship with Jude is also a disappointment - he flipped 180 degrees in this one from the intriguing fae prince into a sappy fantasy prototype. I won't even go into the family dynamics, because this book just doesn't deserve any more time wasted on it. ( )

End of TWK: Cardan weaponizing Elfhame itself, raising volcanoes, boiling the sea, and shushing ancient rulers just to keep his queen safe. Then banishing her in a botched attempt at a newlywed in-joke.
Cut to QoN: Jude bringing snark to a knife fight and thinking, “yeah ugh I guess fighting to first blood is pretty dull.” Later giving an honest to god thumbs up after getting kicked in the stitches from a stab wound.

I disagree with their haters is all