The Queen's Assassin / Melissa de la Cruz

1.5/5

The Queen's Assassin lacked drive. The characters showed no dedication to their respective goals, and the plot wandered. There is a secret "revealed" at the end of the novel but I am honestly not sure if Melissa de la Cruz meant for it to be a reveal or if she meant for us to know it from the beginning, because it was so painfully obvious from literally the first sentence of Chapter 1.

Cal's chapters contained too many moony descriptions of Shadow. Our two leads started out strong and competent, but their so-called espionage mission in the second half of the book was so poorly planned and written it felt like I had accidentally strolled into a poorly-written, plot-free fan fic. De la Cruz also starts wildly tossing in magical elements that were never hinted at in the first 3/4s of the novel. It made the ending feel cheap and ridiculous, and left it on a sour note.

I mean, I finished it, so it wasn't that bad. I enjoyed Shadow's voice and her thinking, and though the beginning is a bit of an information dump, I enjoyed the interesting world-building. I would compare this to a much less developed Grave Mercy. If you're looking for a light romance with a bit of a political background, I'd recommend you breeze through The Queen's Assassin.

The Kingdom of Back / Marie Lu

1/5

I wanted to like it, but ultimately there just wasn't enough interesting material to keep me reading.

Marie Lu did a wonderful job in writing Nannerl's voice, her desire to be great, and her love for her brother. She also created a magical atmosphere-- I could almost feel this other kingdom existing between the cracks of our world. The problem was that there wasn't enough plot. Nothing happened! The novel was slow and our protagonist was much more reactive than proactive. I couldn't tell if the Kingdom of Back was all imagination, if it was a real parallel world, or if Marie Lu was intentionally trying to keep us guessing. 

Ultimately, there was nothing to keep me interested in Nannerl's story. I skipped to the last chapter, skimmed it, and it was just as boring as the first ~1/3 that I'd read, so I concluded that I had missed out on nothing.

Ink in the Blood / Kim Smejkal

4/5

Ink in the Blood is wonderfully written with a cast of complex characters. I loved Kim Smejkal's descriptions of all of these odd people, and the vulnerability of our lead Celia. I also adored the relationship between Anya and Celia.

The diversity and detail of the characters along with the exciting circus setting are two strong points of this novel. It's reminiscent of The Night Circus, but more grounded in terms of mood. Smejkal's exploration of Kitty, Anya, and Celia were all amazing, and I wish we had more time with them to go even further in depth. I felt that her writing of the Plague Doctor though was a little overdone. 

Overall, Smejkal, Celia, and Anya put on an excellent show, and I would recommend Ink in the Blood to The Night Circus fans and to those looking for representation in gender identity.