When She Reigns (Fallen Isles, #3)

by Jodi Meadows

[ladygrey]

I don’t know what to think of this book. I feel like I keep saying these books aren’t bad, but that also they’re not terrible. Which in a way is a virtue...? I don’t hate the characters and I wasn’t really annoyed by Mira in this one. So it’s got to be some sort of plus to write characters that don’t evoke any passion in either direction and still keep me engaged. Moderately. I did put these books down for days at a time but then I kept picking them back up again.

Here’s the one thing, though. There were so many plot points that they cancelled each other out. First the Mira treaty sold the islands to the empire. Which would have been a fine misdirect except a) her father who wrote the darn thing confirmed that falsehood (why? Why if it wasn’t true) and b) ‘sold’ implies they got something out of it—taxes or labor or authority and secretly forcing decisions. The empire got nothing. Except seven dragons, not because of the treaty but as a bargaining chip. Then the Mira Treaty sold the islands to Anahera, again how did that work? They didn’t get taxes or wealth or authority. They got the sick dragons...because they were sick! If the dragons hadn’t gotten sick would the sanctuaries have sent them to Anahera? Then (because two empty misdirects isn’t enough) really the Mira treaty was a smoke screen that Paroh created and then sabotaged so people would like his way of doing things better. Which if he was subversive enough to get them to draft the treaty in the first place, why not get them to draft something he liked instead of something he disagreed with so he can undermine it so he can get what he wants in the end?. It was all just a big mess.

But a big mess that I kept reading and didn’t dislike. I guess I didn’t love any of it because I never felt anything throughout the trilogy. It was all very decently written but not evocative for me. Though she turned the whole chosen one trope upside down a little. And I get her connection to LaLa. I didn’t think I would, but I do. And there’s lots of dragons, so there’s that.