A Royal Pain: An MM Fantasy

This was a long and slow-paced book but I did it! The book is good but unfortunately on the “just okay” side of good.. This book is like... vaguely set in a slightly European country/inspired by all that. But then uhh we had the words “venus fly trap” – used as a metaphor so sort of okay but not the best metaphor that could've been used? I could see that the author didn't want to do all of the research – which, like, I get as a writer because I desperately do not want to put horses into my drafts. Because then I have to think about everything that goes into it. It's difficult. So I understand why we didn't get a lot of mentions of their clothing or what they're using to eat with – both which would show where it's vaguely set in or inspired by. But I would've liked it anyway and maybe it would've changed my thinking of the book.

Most of the book was a lot of politics. And like – I don't mind politics in books. I find it interesting most of the time, especially when tied with magic and all. But also you have to be good at writing said politics and explaining them in a way most readers can understand. Because, you know, sometimes I want to read a fantasy book but not have to deal with a lot of world-building and politics.

Quill kept putting (confusing) politics and world-building and didn't explain it all that well. And because it was all so slow-paced, it made me less wanting to understand everything. I don't mind slow-paced books at all. But naturally they have to be written-well in order to keep the reader interested. Which this wasn't unfortunately.

That's why I can't really say a lot about the plot or politics – because it wasn't exactly memorable. I definitely felt like Quill focused more on the characters than the plot and maybe that's why I didn't remember much of the plot (and more of the characters).

But, all in all, the book wasn't too bad – I liked the main character, Ruztuv the most. I liked the fact that his 4 siblings all have Z's in their names. And there's a Razul and a Reoul in the book so I got confused most of the time