Court of Lions

Unfortunately this was just extremely shallow. The worldbuilding was interesting, as was the concept but it never lived up to it's potential. I don't want to be too harsh on it as I am not the target audience and I don't read YA too often, but I am sad to see all that potential squandered regardless.

(okay I said I don't want to be too harsh but I will complain a bit anyway. This book was probably the perfect example of why “show don't tell” is such a common writing tip. This is something I never even cared about before and I rolled my eyes at this criticism. I get it now! Everyone is making such grandiose statements about their relationships. Not just the romantic relationships either. Amani goes on and on about how Maram and she are like sisters and how Maram would be a great queen but I never felt like either was the case. All Maram does is shift responsibility onto Amani, honestly I thought everyone would be better off if she just stepped off as a Queen. As for being like sisters, there were the seeds of it in the last book but in this they barely interact in this book. Amani just read as having the biggest case of Stockholm syndrome. Maram on her end had a romantic relationship with a woman in this book, which was barely touched upon. I can't believe I am saying this but I almost wish it just wasn't there at all. I was excited for Maram's pov but it is all in flashback, not relevant to the current plot thread. Her love interest shows little personality and has barely any pagetime. I wish she was scrapped and we got Maram's actual thoughts on the real plot more, or else that her love story was actually more relevant somehow. This series originally fell on my radar because someone sold me it as “there is an evil lesbian princess in this one”. If you are also interested for this reason just keep in mind it's an extremely minor and imo not well executed plot)