The Queen of the Tearling

“Even a book can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and when that happens, you blame the hands, but you also read the book.”

The summary for this book is a huge hunk of a summary, however, I think to an extent it shows what this book is. This book is so complex and intriguing with so many different facets to it. Due to the nature of this book, a long summary is necessary. However, I would give you this shortened summary: In this book you have the Tear people who have been under the brutal rule of the Reagent, and the Queen passed. In comes the rightful heir to the crown, Kelsea. Kelsea is our heroine who has a long journey ahead of her to take her rightful place as Queen. This journey is riddled with politics, battles, and magic.

I went into this book knowing it was a slow read that had a lot to set up before it got to the quote-on-quote action. In many situations, I'm all for the slow world building, as long as it is done properly. And I have to say, Erika Johansen does an amazing job setting up this world and the characters. Very little happens plot wise in this book but we are introduced to the main villain and know what to an extent what Kelsea has to face to give her kingdom the prosperity and freedom it deserves.

As for the characters, I have so many different thoughts about each one. They each have so many layers and reasons for their actions and choices and I loved the sheer amount of development that each character recieves. For me the character that has me most intrigued is definitely the Fetch and that is mostly due to just how little we actually know about him. We do not even really know if we can trust him. And there is definitely something special about him in Kelsea's eyes. Other than Kelsea and the Fetch, we have the members of the Queen's guard. I loved how they were slowly introduced to us and how we learned tiny details about them as Kelsea learned more.

The one issue I had with this book was the timing of it. It is supposedly set in the future after some sort of apocalypse where William Tear left the Americas to travel to where this book takes place. This is clearly in our world since the Harry Potter books are mentioned, but I struggle with grasping the timing and how the almost medieval aspects of the book fit in with this future society. I also question where the rest of humanity is during all of this and why basic things such as medicine, doctors, and even a simple printing press are nonexistent.

As for what is to come, there are so many questions I have after reading this book. There are so many questions about the world, the Red Queen and who she really is (and who she is working with), the sapphires that seem to be magical, and especially who Kelsea's father is. I really hope we learn the answers to at least some of these questions in the Invasion of the Tearling.

I picked this book because it reportedly had a strong female protagonist. however the Queen of Tearling was deeply unsatisfying. The main character is a Mary Sue who has only superficial struggles and little growth. Her personality is inconsistent with her up bringing making many of her actions feel inconsistent or jarring . As such the book reads like a stage for the author to play out the fantasy of “what would I do if I was ruler of the world”.

This series was fun and intriguing. Some character development...some worldbuilding. Lots of room is left for the reader to imagine and fan fiction writers to fill in. There are hundreds of years of history with complex political and moral challenges. Without giving out any spoilers it is hard to say what happens - only that Kelsey does find a way to avoid destruction of her kingdom as she knows it. Her method was a bit of a surprise, and the ending is one I did not expect.

Not all neat and tidy, the series tells a good story - where you can get lost in the promise of a better world.

It's too long, for what is essentially an introduction to the story. It drags for the first 200 or so pages. There are stupid moments and plot holes aplenty. The whole idea of this medieval world actually taking place in the future just feels like an attempt at originality that doesn't work.

Somehow i still ended up caring about the characters and their story. The last two hundred pages may have even approached 4-star quality, and I was entertained. So, overall, I hope the next two books can improve on the many flaws of this book, because I want to see where this story goes.

Que livro bom!

Pensei em escrever aos poucos uma review, pois cada virada de página vinha novas interpretações e pensamentos. Mas como sempre, deixei pra última página.

Fiquei surpresa com o desenrolar da história e principalmente p desenvolvimento das personagens. Me apeguei a todos, inclusive.

Só uma resalva que não seu quem é o real, ou o mais vilão. Espero que a autora não se perca e desenvolva ainda mais esse mundo rico que ela criou (e explique que pós mundo é esse Meu Deus!), sem perder a essência das personagens!

muito bom mesmo!

A 19 year old princess who has grown up in hiding is smuggled back to the capital city of the Tearling to be crowned Queen. She spends the book learning how to be Queen while trying to put an end to the corruption and evil that had been allowed to run rampant under the Regent, her uncle. Also, she fights off assassination attempts. Meanwhile, in the neighboring country of Mortmesne, there's a 113 year old queen who is preparing to invade and inflict horrors on the people of the Tearling.

I liked this book up until nearly the end, when suddenly magic solved a major problem. Kelsea, the princess, had an interesting personality, the history of the Tearling was intriguing (is this a post-apocalyptic story?), and it was very readable. There were some characters who had second sight, and a necklace that had mysterious properties, but magic didn't play a major role until late in the story. I found the shift kind of jarring.

This is the first book of a trilogy. I'm not sure if I'll read the others.

My husband set himself a challenge for my Christmas this year, to buy me a book that I hadn't read or owned and that I would love and enjoy. This was easier said than done, I read so extensively that he fully admitted he truly didn't know a comprehensive list of those I'd read over the years and those I already owned so he went and did some online research at books that were regarded highly and crossed his fingers and hoped for the best.

Whilst he was doing his research I was watching Reagan from Peruse Project talking about her favourite fantasy series' of all time and was intrigued by her love for the Tearling trilogy and so I'd already decided to add them to my TBR list but you can imagine my joy when on Christmas morning I opened my gift to find my husband had bought me The Queen of the Tearling, the first in Erika Johansens's Tearling trilogy. It was as if he'd read my mind. Huge brownie points for picking both one I'd not already read or owned and that I had already decided I couldn't wait to read.

And I loved it! This book was my favourite book I've read so far this year. The story of Kelsea, a girl who has been raised by foster parents her whole life out in the countryside till one day a group of Queen's guards arrives to take her back to New London, the Tearling capital. Kelsea is no ordinary girl, she is the heir to the Tearling throne and she has now come of age and is able to claim her birthright. The only problem is that she has many enemies who would rather she didn't survive long enough to sit upon the throne and she knows little of the world she will soon rule. Can she survive and become the ruler that the country needs?

The first thing that I loved about this book was the characters. Johansen writes such colourful and rich characters in this novel. The personalities she creates for them she accompanies with wonderful backstories that have led them to this point in their lives and for those whom she wishes to remain more remove she gives us glimpses of their mystery and allows us to pray she will at some point in the trilogy explore these so we can gain the answers we seek. There are so many amazing people I fell in love with in the story, The Mace was a wonderfully strong and compassionate friend to Kelsea and I loved the mysterious Fetch who always seemed to be there when she needed him. Pen, her guard and friend and even the villains of the piece like The Regent and Arlen Thorne. Each of them seemed larger than life and you want to read more about them, in a 440-page book it wasn't enough. I cannot wait to rejoin them in book 2 of this series.

The second highlight of this book was the setting. The Tearling world is clearly one that is fairly primitive, they have mastered simple skills such as building, woodwork and farming but it has a fairly old world feel yet we are given glimpses of a time before this book called The Crossing where travellers from America and the ‘old world' fled their homes and travelled by sea to this new world where Tearling resides. This ‘old world' is clearly our world because they talk about e-books and computers and drug problems and in the Queen's library they talk of popular fiction of today such as the 7 volumes of Rowling and The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. This gave it such a fascinating feel that although this world is clearly a future one it is one where people have returned to a time when technology and progress have been reversed and we have taken a step back some several hundred years.

Finally, the politics of this world was so engaging. The deep divide between the rich and poor of the Tearling, the way the Regent has lived in wealth and fed the wealth of the nobles whilst the poor struggle to survive is something we often in books but accompanied by the intrigue of the Shipments and the relationship with it's stronger neighbour Mortmense and it's looming ruler The Red Queen was such a great setting for this novel. Kelsea's struggle to try and right these wrongs, whilst battling against those who have no desire for things to change was what kept my pages turning again and again. The fact that we still have much to learn in the coming books about how we arrived at this situation and why The Red Queen needed Tearling slaves so badly and how Kelsea will manage to fix the political inequalities means that Johansen has left us plenty to wonder about and bring us back.

I find it no surprise that this book has had film rights purchased for it by the team responsible for Harry Potter, I am only disappointed that nothing has been done with them thus far. I read this book at a really busy time for my family where I could only find ocassional points to pick it up but I was longing to read it all the time. I was getting frustrated when I knew I couldn't sit down and progress with it. If I'd been under normal weekly task loads I'd have read this much quicker. I absolutely will be reading the two companion novels soon as this was a wonderful fantasy novel set in a wonderful world with some of the best characters I've read about in some time.

This was a bit more slow paced than I expected it to be so it did take me a while to read (I took a break and read something else in the middle!), however that said it was well written and I enjoyed the story being told. I already have the next book in the series so I'm hoping it picks up a bit more in book 2!

Wow, ternyata bagus & aku suka banget. Strength female heroine yg tadinya diragukan menjadi ratu oleh pemgawal2nya ketika dia dijemput dari rmh orang tua angkat yg telah membesarkannya selama 19 thn, namun pada akhirnya mendapatkan hormat dari para pengawalnya ini, juga yg lebih penting, dari rakyatnya.
Kelsea berusia 19 thn ketika dijemput oleh para pengawal ratu untuk mengklaim tahta Tearling yg 19 thn terakhir dipegang oleh King Regent, pamannya Thomas Raleigh. Selama 19 thn pula upaya untuk melenyapkannya gk pernah berhenti namun ajaibnya org tua angkatnya mampu menyembunyikan keberadaan Kelsea. Selama perjalanan hingga tiba di istana pun usaha pembunuhan atas dirinya gk berhenti. Dimulailah perjalanan Kelsea menjadi Ratu Tearling...