Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake: Book Review

My Rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: YA Fantasy

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When kingdom come, there will be one.

In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.

But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.

The last queen standing gets the crown.

I LOVED THIS BOOK, THIS SERIES IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES OF ALL TIME. So why didn’t it get five stars? I’m not going to lie to you, it took me a while to actually start enjoying this book, you have to get to the 50-60% mark to get really invested in it, because the first half was pretty slow, with a lot of world-building and conversations between the many characters, who all have different roles and relationships to the queens, and chapters jumping to the different kingdoms and ya girl was C O N F U S E D.

BUT, there was hope, because something, I still don’t know what, kept me reading and then, all of a sudden something clicked, and I was in love with the whole book and its world and its characters. I really, really, really recommend reading this and powering through the beginning, even if you think its boring and long (not that I found it boring, but I’ve heard a lot of people say it is, it’s just a lot of world-building and getting to know characters, which often takes a lot of time, particularly in fantasy). Once you get to the magical halfway point, you will not put this book down, I pinky promise.

The characters in this book are uh-mazing, I found myself having such strong feelings and opinions towards/on characters and I think any book that has made me care so deeply has done an amazing job. My favourite baby of all my babies in this book is Arsinoe (and the gang) I love all of them and if anyone mistreats them I will HUNT YOU DOWN. I loved reading about Katherine and her life, because it was brutal, and I felt so bad for her (not any more, because I despise her in book two (in the best possible way)), but when I was reading about her and her treatment by the asshole bitches she lived with, I was so into it, like, I could see everything that was happening, that’s how good Kendare Blake’s writing was. My least favourite sister in this book was Mirabella, I hated her and everything she did (see spoiler section for more on that). All the ‘side’ characters were also amazing to the point where it seemed like every single character was a main character because I cared about every single one of them sosososososo much.

This book, overall, is brilliant, it is worth the first 50% and it will keep you turning pages until it’s three a.m. and you’re sobbing uncontrollably in the corner of your bedroom with this book next to you and you can’t remember hoe you got there.

If you haven’t read this book and plan on reading this book, scroll past the next heading and section until you get to the ‘That’s a Wrap!’ bit, if not, let us continue.

These are just things I really wanted to discuss, but are spoilers, enjoy…

• JOSEPH AND MIRABELLA MADE ME SO MAD JESUS CHRIST I WANTED TO KILL SOMEONE. AND MORE THAN THAT, WHEN MIRABELLA DOES HER STUPID ‘SEXY’ FIRE DANCE THING???????????/ WHAT WAS THAT?
• My poor baby Arsinoe when her face gets destroyed, did she deserve that? Do it to Mirabella instead!
• Jules’ mum is a right bitch. Who sleeps with theirs sisters former love?
• Arsinoe’s bear is the loml, I wish he succeeded in attacking Mirabella
• Mirabella is such a little bitch when she was all emotionak and ‘oh my god! i can’t believe my sister set her bear on me !!!11! That makes me sad, why does she hate me? All I did was sleep with her best friends true love!!!’ BOO HOO.
• Pietyr pushing Katherine into the Breccia Domain pit had me shook.
• MY GIRL ARSINOE IS A POISONER, EVERYONE SLEPT ON HER, THEY JUST DIDN’T KNOW HOW GOOD SHE WAS

And that’s it! Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed it! In the comments let me know if you’ve read this book or if you plan on reading it, and also, if you have read it, let me know what you thought of the points I mentioned in the spoilers section! Thanks again for reading and I’ll talk to you in my next post ❤