Two Dark Reigns || lackluster tbh

Title: Two Dark Reigns

Author: Kendare Blake

Genre: Fantasy

Category: Young Adult

Status: Book 3 of Three Dark Crowns series

Goodreads

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Synopsis:

Katharine sits on the throne, Mirabella and Arsinoe are in hiding, and an unexpected renegade is about to wage a war of her own. The crown has been won, but these queens are far from done.

Note: there are spoilers for books 1 and 2 in this review.

I didn’t expect much going into the book. I thought the series was supposed to be a duology (which was why I picked it up when One Dark Throne released) but it got extended to four. I found the ending of book 2 very messy as well. Honestly, I do not remember the second half of book 2 at all.

The Plot

The title symbolizes the two reigns of two queens. Katharine, who sits on the throne as the rightful Goddess-blooded queen, and Jules, a war-gifted naturalist who is now a rebel. Both of them try to conquer from their positions and are going against each other.

Meanwhile Arsinoe and Mirabella are staying in Billy’s home in the mainland. They find out that the outside world is very different and they are not welcomed. In the midst of trying to make it in the mainland, Arsinoe gets strange dreams where she’s looking through the eyes of a girl called Daphne in the era of The Blue Queen, which was MANY reigns ago.

Arsinoe thinks that the dreams are from The Blue Queen, who wants her to go back to the island to do something.

My thoughts on the book:

• Katharine was okay. She had undead queens inside of her, which was still creepy. But other than that, her being queen in such a situation created a very interesting dynamic, especially when it’s affecting other things.
• Peter and Katharine are still in love. It was weird. I didn’t know what to make of them.
• Mirabella was boring in this book. I liked her in the previous books but she literally did nothing in this book except saying that she’s going to protect Arsinoe.
• Arsinoe was boring as well. Not as much as Mira but enough. She was better than Mire because of the dreams thing.
• The most interesting part of the book was everything related to The Blue Queen. I LOVED finding out the history and about Queen Illian’s reign. I would LOVE to read an entire book, or maybe two or three, about Queen Illian. She was the last of a quartet, instead of the usual triplet, and therefore she was pronounced as the queen right from the start. Ask me to talk about The Blue Queen’s story and I will tell you everything in excitement. I loved the story.
• In comparison, the current triplet seemed meh.

Overall

I didn’t like the book except for The Blue Queen storyline.

I took about a month to read this book. Maybe it was because I was in a slump, or because I was busy. But I think I also didn’t want to pick it up because it was boring.