The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The worldbuilding? unique as fuuckkk
the character development? glorious
the plot twists? Up the godddamn wazoo
In all honesty I really adored this book. We have a snooty prince, a group of thieves, a city vigilante, a toxic mist, and a total badasss named Willa
Willa is what really made this whole book reach another level. I was really looking for something MORE than the basic –“hi there, imma baddie who hits stuff really hard”– vibes that the past couple books hEaViLy relied upon to describe their heroine.
But then there’s our heroine, Wilhelmina, who has a hundred identities. She is a princess. She is a spy. She is a threat. And now one of my favorite heroines !!
And what has she been up to?? Oh you know just leading a group of thieves that look out for each other and rob shitty people. But its totally for a great cause …. of taking over a kingdom !!
And the mindgames!! Holy shit the tricks and plots within the book kept me on the edge of my fucking seat! Both Willa and Tobias each had their own schemes trying to maneuver political mayhem to achieve their own *conflicting* goals
And there was so much mystery around who everyone really was, who were the true allies and the real enemies here… At first Willa recognized Tobias as prince and he only knew her as thief.
But there is so much more to these characters!
They each have histories and motivations and goals…and they both lowkey assholes I mean people willing to do whatever it makes to get their way * yah I ship it*
The way the author built up each of these characters, each working their own manipulations while toxic magic is spreading across the land and gangs and rebellions and GODITWASSOFUCKINGGOOD!!!!
The only thing that kept this book from a 5 star for me was a cliche thats even worse than a love triangle
Spoiler
The prince was black knife.
like come on, this honestly made me so sad because it just made the whole book lose an element to me.
Really, without the whole royalty shit I would love to just read a book about Black Knife, kingdom vigilante and Nameless girl strong leader of her gang. But i mean royal politics is cool too, on top of everything its a great concept and lets go for book 2!
This is some of the greatest shit I’ve ever read
“Who are you?”
“Well who are you?”
“You can call me *flips hair* the Black knife”
“But you’re holding a sword…?”
“Well umm ya know sometimes i throw knifes, just tell me your name!”
“I dont wanna”
“Fine you can be Nameless girl”
*and shit goes down*
Leave a Reply