Well, as I said in the title,
I just did a bad thing.
I have to admit, starting this blog has given me a renewed vigor for chewing through fantasy books, so I've been scouting out series that I have no right not having read yet. I definitely plan on re-reading a few series to make posts here, but in general I'm quite excited to burn through some new crowd-pleasing trilogies. And, well, obviously in this case the crowd is me, and those trilogies are YA fantasy with a strong female protagonist.
As one might expect though, "given the circumstances" (or insert your favorite euphemism here), it's been kinda tough getting books, so, I've been using every library card I own (3) to tap into every online library network I can. Generally, I've found success through this method. I just installed Libby (big shout to the Boston Public Library for allowing Minuteman Network card holders to, uh, mooch), and was excited to move through their fairly extensive catalog of YA fantasy. One thing I like a lot about the Libby app is it will tell you what number in the series a book is as your browsing. If you look at the screenshot I took below, you can see
The Broken Ones is number five in its series, and that
Broken Crown has no number, so it must be a one-off!
Right? Wrong!
So the reality is that
Broken Throne is a novella compendium set before, during, and after the events of the
Red Queen series. I was ready to come onto this blog and bash this book all sorts of different directions. I mean, one, there's
vastly more exposition than story, which is a near-mortal sin in my opinion... unless that exposition is simply catching me up with things that I would know if I had read the previous four (4!) books. Two, there is all this worldbuilding that is never fleshed out, and when it is it's always in the form of boring story interludes. And three, and most egregious in my opinion, is there seems like there's this really interesting story happening in the background of everything that I don't get to read!
That's because there is. It's... the series, like, what you're supposed to read.
Making this mistake hits hard in several different ways. I have spent a large amount of time not only reading this book that I didn't like all that much (but could have liked, given the right, *ahem*, correct context), but I have also spoiled the entirety of the Red Queen series for myself - and this series looks amazing! I will likely read it sometime in the future but darn, I need some time...
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant directed at myself. Don't be like me, kids, always check GoodReads first, and don't trust Libby.
-Michael
