Lexie Hardy

This book is very dark and has some disturbing content. I did find that I could see the content coming and I could skip the paragraph or page without losing the content of the story. I would caution more conservative readers that there are discussions of rape and a lot of death and violence. I did not think it was as bad as many other books I've encountered and I suspect that the HBO show may have made the content worse than it was presented in the book.
As far as the story line, characters and wold building it was excellent.

I have really enjoyed the graceling books. The dialog and plot of this book seems geared to a young audience, but the content is mature and disturbing. There is a lot of violence and discussion of atrocious acts similar to those described during the world war II Holocaust, except it's set in a fantasy setting. The descriptions are very dark and I'd be very hesitant to recommend it to young readers.
I do appreciate that there is a theme about the damage covering up mistakes can cause. I do like that the author describes that avoiding problems and putting our head in the sand makes problems larger and more complicated. The themes are good, but the writing is sub-par. I had difficulty getting to sleep at night after reading this book due to the content.