Review: Queen of Ruin

Queen of Ruin by Tracy Banghart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Good:
- Girl Power
- Malachi <3
- Nomi being stubborn
- Serina being a BOSS
- Conclusion

The Bad:
- Less tension
- The hookups were pretty mediocre
- Zero history lessons/world building
- It was all just a little too easy

I enjoyed it, but mostly because I love the themes of this story. But I think that's also its weakness? The feminism is strong in this one and the ladies are facing some heavy duty oppression, which means it resonates with real world issues. The problem is that it's too black and white - oppressing women is bad, all the soldiers are evil, 'if we overthrow the evil men, women can finally be acknowledged as being equal with men and have rights and wages etc ...' - there's no grey. Aside from the love interests, there are basically no sympathetic males, and no blissfully unaware women. There is no glimpse of the okay-ish side of things, no real exploration of the depths of characters who feel differently. It's just the badass women fighting back against an evil tyrant.

Don't get me wrong - I loved the badass women fighting back. It's what made the first book so powerful. But I think this book wrapped things up a little too quickly and neatly. I'm hoping for a third book where everything falls apart, and at the very least I want the history lessons, because I want to know more about the warrior queens of the past. Also, what the heck is going on in other nations while all this is going down? Do they not even care?

The scope of this story was so TINY so while I loved it it did feel a little ... shallow. I am invested in this world for the long haul - now gimme the haul, dammit! (Please.)

Overall though it was a fun read and it went pretty easy on my emotions for which I was thankful. I mean, tbh, I was expecting a lot more, darker drama than I actually got. So my emotions didn't really go far beyond 'YASSSS QUEENS!' and 'Awwww Malachi <3'.

I have really enjoyed this series, though, so I'm hanging out for more!

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