The Orphan Queen

Actual rating 3.8. Mild spoilers ahead.

I really liked this book. It has its objective mistakes but overall the good parts were good enough (for me) to oversee the bad ones.
Yes, it has some of the standard tropes of YA literature (i.e: lost royalty, court infiltration, badass with weapons main character, first person pov, forbidden magic, etc. etc.). (Read Jessica's review to see the things that got beneath my skin but I let go: review)

I specially liked two things. The pacing and the romance (and I'm kind of picky when it comes to the latter).

I was on the edge of my... bed? I was lying down, ok? You get me. The wraithland part was very nice, it is just you, Wilhelmina and the mysterious lurking secrets that dwell on the wraithland waiting to be discovered.

The romance, tho, the romance. Look it's great when you have a real sexy, real handsome love interest, I'm all for it, but if you insist on shoving it down our throats every ten lines (I'm looking at you Obsidian and Princess of Thorns) I'm gonna end up kinda hating him. The thing about this is that everything is more about what he makes her feel and not (spoiler?) so much about how he's ripe to eat and the crown prince. Don't get me wrong, he is... but by the time we get something remotely romantic we're more than half the book down and I don't care about how he looks but the fact that he ToUCHEd her arm, this is some 2005 Pride & Prejudice Darcy's wild unchaperoned taking of Lizzy's hand to help her get on the carriage sort of thing here. Ok? Ok. (I actually think I liked the book only for the way the romance plot was written)
I quite enjoyed the read but wouldn't recommend if you're tired of the aforementioned cliches/tropes and/or if you are craving a complex story.

Also there were like three or four infodumps that could've been put out of their misery.

This book was just....okay.

I'm not really sure how I feel about it. It's just equal parts dull, equal parts boring, equal parts interesting, and equal parts cool.

There's nothing remarkable about this book but it's isn't the worse thing on the market.

It's mainly just mystery, dialogue, disguises, secrets and running through cities.

The writing was very awkward at times. You can really tell that this was one of Jodi Meadow's older books. I've read Before She Ignites and her writing has grown.

I didn't like Wilhelmina all that much. She made some stupid, impulsive decisions sometimes and was kind of selfish and pestimistic. I don't know if this is the writing, but every five pages she reminds the readers of the horrors she went through, and that her parents were shot in front of everyone. The book tries to paint her as some warrior and expert fighter but loses her daggers and attention often during fights. She didn't really act like a Queen or leader at all for the whole book until near the end. I felt she had little development, I felt like she didn't really change that much over the course of the book.

I don't know if I will be reading the second book, I'll probably just skim through to get some closure.

If you like slow-paced mystery fantasy books with a heavy focus on espionage then this is the book for you.

I really enjoyed reading this book. it took me a little while to get into it but once I did It did not take me very long to finish it. I really liked the world building and I instantly liked most of the characters especially Wilhelmina and Black Knife. I will definitely be continuing this series.