“Katniss Everdeen, you have competition.”—Entertainment WeeklyIn the final volume of the the New York Times bestselling Tearling trilogy, which has captivated readers around the world, Erika Johansen brings the series to a climactic and satisfying close.In less than a year, Kelsea Glynn has transformed from a gawky teenager into a powerful monarch. As she has come into her own as the Queen of the … teenager into a powerful monarch. As she has come into her own as the Queen of the Tearling, the headstrong, visionary leader has also transformed her realm. In her quest to end corruption and restore justice, she has made many enemies—including the evil Red Queen, her fiercest rival, who has set her armies against the Tear.
To protect her people from a devastating invasion, Kelsea did the unthinkable—she gave herself and her magical sapphires to her enemy, and named the Mace, the trusted head of the Queen’s Guard, as Regent in her place. The Mace will not rest until he and his men rescue their sovereign, imprisoned and imperiled in Mortmesne. While they embark on this dangerous mission, Kelsea must unravel the secrets of her own heritage and of the Tearling’s past, secrets with stakes far higher than she could ever have imagined. But a powerful new enemy stands in her way. Bolstered by anger from the past and growing stronger by the day, he’ll stop at nothing to destroy anyone who challenges his claim.
Now, as the suspenseful endgame begins, the fate of Queen Kelsea—and of the Tearling itself—will finally be revealed.
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I’ve held off buzzing about this book, the 3rd in the The Queen of the Tearling trilogy, because I was on the fence about whether I’d actually recommend the series or not.
Letting The Fate of the Tearling percolate a bit more, I ultimately would recommend the book and the series for the following reasons:
* Level of Difficulty: Johansen weaves intersecting narratives, settings, and characters across 3 different timelines and mostly pulls it off
* Unpredictability: Nothing unfolds as you’d expect it to
* Series Ending: Where Johansen leaves the main character feels right somehow
Why you might not want to dive in to this series:
* It’s not a straightforward, good triumphs over evil fantasy
* The main character, Kelsea, is hard to like at times and her actions don’t always feel organic (though Johansen explains this in the 3rd book)
* Johansen doesn’t coddle you or help you remember the various plotlines and characters from book-to-book, so it’d be best to read the series back-to-back
*Lastly, these books have some slooow parts that you must slog through to get to satisfying ending that tie everything together
Nice conclusion to the trilogy. It tied up the story lines nicely. I loved some of the sweet and bittersweet moments with the secondary characters. Unfortunately , it had been a while since I’d read the second book, and I spent a lot of time trying to remember the references. Also, the ending seemed a bit abrupt.
It took me longer to read this final book in the trilogy, because I was reluctant to get to the end of, what has been for me, an extremely worthwhile read. Now I can’t decide how to feel about that ending. The emotional part of me feels betrayed and angry, while the rational side wants to know how else it could have possibly ended. Most of the time my emotional side wins out, and I want to meet the author so I can growl through my teeth at her, then stalk away like a wounded animal. Other times, I know that I would just give her a pat on the back and say “You did what you had to do.” Sigh…loving books is hard.
I enjoyed the entire trilogy. I really hope the rumor it will be a movie is true. Very original story with likable characters.
I honestly did not like the ending. And I wish we had learned more about the past before the crossing.
I’m not really sure how I felt about this book. I definitely love this series and the characters, although I feel like all the things I loved about Kelsea in the first book steadily dwindled with each book. The first book I think is still my favorite. I felt like this book is less about Kelsea’s role as queen as it is about her fugue states into the past. I just didn’t love this book and while I’m not completely disappointed with the ending, I wish that with the buildup of Roe Finn that he would have actually had a main role in this book instead of glimpses into the past through Kelsea.
Kelsea was a strong opinionated character that took her role as queen head on. I loved her in the first book despite her many faults that were clearly stated. But it steadily grew hard to love her in her battle to better the Tear when she became more and more violent and just terrible. I thought by the end of this book that she wasn’t a very good queen after all. She became a terrible person who had the nerve to judge others on this mistakes and bad choices when she is definitely not perfect.
Parts of this book were great while others were just a mess. There were so many unanswered questions that I almost felt cheated in the end. The ending was blah and I can see now why so many people were disappointed. I now see that there was really no point to Finn and his dark return because his character is never really present in this book, which was such a letdown. Even the Red Queen lost her spark of evil for me. Basically there were a lot of things wrong with this story.
I did enjoy some of the revelations in this book that get revealed. All the secondary characters are still quite lovable. And of course the world is one I’m always happy to immerse myself in. I love this series as a whole even if this book is my least favorite. Its still unique and creative unlike any other fantasy books I’ve read.
I personally felt like the ending to this great series was anticlimactic. I loved the series, just wanted a better ending.