Book Review: QUINTANA OF CHARYN
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! It's a freaking review, what did you expect?
These are the types of scenes that make me all feelsy. Not blatant character death. Not terrible misfortune (sorry, stillborn Isaboebaby).
These types of scenes. 'Beautiful', I call them, because nothing else can describe them properly.
And then I read the epilogue while listening to the biggest feels-bomb of a song I've ever heard that just so happened to suit if perfectly. [Translated lyrics]
To sum it up, Quintana of Charyn is a wonderful, wonderful book. The first half is quite slow, but that doesn't make it any less wonderful. The wonder of this book is not found in the action sequences or the romance. It's found the individual actions and stories of the vast cast of characters, what they're willing to do for each other, and how all of their actions eventually gain one focal point even though they may not see it. It's really hard to notice WHILE reading the book, however, and I was only able to notice afterwords how everything was intricately woven together in to form a massively detailed plot in a vast, lively world that you never get tired of exploring with Finnikin, Froi, Isaboe, Quintana, and all the other amazing characters this book holds.
I'm getting feels just thinking about how it's over.
I give Quintana of Charyn a well deserved 10/10.
... ... I'm really gonna miss these books.
And Froi's attitude.
Which can be summed up like this:
- MechEngie
If you're reading this post, then you've probably read Quintana of Charyn or just don't plan to. If you're the former, you've also probably read my review of the predecessor novel, Froi of the Exiles. For those that didn't read it, read it now or for those forgetful ones that may not remember, there was kind of a cliffhanger in that review:
"The youngest person in the kingdom is the Princess, a split-personality crazy chick that nobody appreciates. More on that later."
Welcome to later.
Moving right in, the entire focus of the third and final Lumatere Chronicles novel is Quintana, the supposedly mentally unstable and quite misunderstood princess of Charyn. Three weeks after the event of Froi of the Exiles, Froi is less of a pincushion and Quintana is nowhere to be seen. Charyn is about to explode into a civil war, and the only way that it could be stopped would be to find the crazy princess and her unborn child.
The start of this book follows so cleanly off the end of Froi of Exiles that the two books could easily be combined into one supermassive volume. With me, that's practically what it was considering I read them back to back. As with FotE, there's a heavy focus on more than one story happening at the same time. However, this book sees the stories starting to converge on a single plotline, which leads to some really awesome and breathtaking scenes in the end quarter of the book. However, much like FotE, the first half the book is relatively stunted compared to the last half in that it's awfully slow to get started. Despite that, though, I was not once bored while reading this novel. Sure, for the first half of the book some of the plotlines seemed completely pointless at the time, but the fact that the wide cast of characters in the book never ceased to be entertaining, I was never actually bored.
The character development in these books is phenomenal. Never has it happened that I disliked a character and then grew to love the character by the end. This book did that several times, mainly with Gargarin and Lirah. Both of them annoyed me when they first showed up in Froi of the Exiles, but after time (and quite a bit of backstory) I grew to love them.
And the ending.
The ending was perfect.
That last scene with all of Froi's Lumateran friends buzzing around him enacting some plan that was Gargarin's idea in the first place, which ended when Froi asked Quintana to marry him in front of the handsomest handsome to ever grace the handsomes the provincari people, and how they all just wanted Froi to be happy...
These types of scenes. 'Beautiful', I call them, because nothing else can describe them properly.
And then I read the epilogue while listening to the biggest feels-bomb of a song I've ever heard that just so happened to suit if perfectly. [Translated lyrics]
To sum it up, Quintana of Charyn is a wonderful, wonderful book. The first half is quite slow, but that doesn't make it any less wonderful. The wonder of this book is not found in the action sequences or the romance. It's found the individual actions and stories of the vast cast of characters, what they're willing to do for each other, and how all of their actions eventually gain one focal point even though they may not see it. It's really hard to notice WHILE reading the book, however, and I was only able to notice afterwords how everything was intricately woven together in to form a massively detailed plot in a vast, lively world that you never get tired of exploring with Finnikin, Froi, Isaboe, Quintana, and all the other amazing characters this book holds.
I'm getting feels just thinking about how it's over.
I give Quintana of Charyn a well deserved 10/10.
... ... I'm really gonna miss these books.
And Froi's attitude.
Which can be summed up like this:
- MechEngie
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