The Beauty of Darkness (Remnant Chronicles, #3)

by Mary E Pearson

[Ashley]

Hmm.

While I did enjoy this book, it didn't quite go the direction I thought it would.

- The romance that I fell SO in love with in book #1 all but disappeared. The focus is 100% on politics/war. I don't necessarily mind that in a book, but I feel like the first book led me to believe this series was a romance. In the end, I'm not really sure I'd call it that.

- The religious part of the book really becomes front and center. It started out more like a prophecy but it really developed into a whole religion that became a huge part of the story. I'm just not a religious person so I don't particularly love reading about it.

- Whenever Lia made a speech it was so flowery... I really didn't like it. I thought it was cheesy. Example: "Brothers! Sisters! I am your queen! Daughter of your blood and sister of your heart!" It's like she spoke to them as if she was some kind of deity, which is funny because she talked about how she tried to move among the people in a very one-on-one way.

- I thought the end was a little silly. (show spoiler)[There's a huge battle, enormous armies, and then Lia just jumped up on a hill and.... asked them to stop.... so they did.... Okay. Also I couldn't believe she just left her kingdom and went on to rule Venda? Maybe I should have seen it coming but it felt SO ABRUPT! Like she didn't really tell anyone she was going to do this, then as soon as the fighting is over, "Okay guys I'm going to be queen of Venda. See ya!"] (hide spoiler)

I actually stopped reading this book about halfway through for a whole week while I re-read a romance series instead.

I didn't hate this book but I'm disappointed that I didn't love it more. It didn't really grip me and the romance I loved so much in the first book was basically gone. *sigh*