The Remnant Chronicles
By: Mary E. Pearson
3 stars
The series follows young princess Lia of the Kingdom of Morrighan who flees the castle on her wedding day in order to escape a forced marriage to the prince of Dalbreck, a rival kingdom. On the run with her maid Pauline, she encounters two mysterious and handsome men. However, she doesn't know that one of them is the rejected prince and the other is an assassin sent to kill her...
Individual book ratings
Book 1 - The Kiss of Deception: ★★★ ½
Book 2 - The Heart of Betrayal: ★★★. 7
Book 3 - The Beauty of Darkness: ★★★
Characters
I think the characters in this series were... alright. They are good enough, but I'm not like crazy about them. The main character Lia is the usual YA rebellious type. Kaden and Pauline were nice, two of my favourites. Rafe was really annoying, to be honest. I did not like him at all. To the left here is my favourite fanart for Lia. So pretty!! I did enjoy many of the side characters though. I just felt that overall, the characters were a bit wooden at times and as a reader, I couldn't relate to them very well. I felt detached. Lia, the MC is like brave and courageous and wise and everything, but I just felt distanced from the characters for some reason?? I don't know why, maybe it's because I was reading other books while reading this one.
Writing
The writing in the remnant chronicles is unnecessarily descriptive, like purple prose but in a negative way. Obviously, not everyone will feel like this, but for me it felt really sugarcoated? The writing just wasn't my style. I guess it's beautiful but it was just too flourishy and mystical for me. Don't get me wrong, I love dramatic, descriptive writing!! But, this writing was just off-putting for some reason. It was like the writing was trying to be too wise for its words?? Does that even make sense. I don't know but I just didn't mesh well with this writing. Also, I didn't really see the point of the excerpts from Gaudrel, Morrighan and Venda throughout the book. It was pretty useless, honestly.
Plot/Pacing
The plot follows Lia as she runs away from arranged marriage because she wants to pave her own path. She becomes a barmaid at a tavern in the small town of Terravin. Two ✨mysterious✨ strangers (aka Kaden and Rafe) show up one day. She is oblivious that one is an assassin and one is the prince she was meant to marry. The reader doesn't know which of the two is the assassin or the prince. So it's good to keep you guessing. Bla bla bla stuff happens and the rest is a spoiler. My main complaint for this book is the pacing was so slow! It wasn't like super boring, but the story definitely dragged. Like we have multiple pages of a detailed description of her doing laundry. And we had 300 pages of her being a barmaid and getting to know Rafe and Kaden.
First of all, I think my expectations for the series were high so I was dissapointed when I read it. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't something that I think I would reread
Second, I think that it's just not my taste. The plot was really slow the whole series for me. I've seen people say that it was fast-paced which confused me, but I think it's a personal taste thing, the plot just didn't hold my interest that much. I think it's not quite an own worthy series, but it's too late for that now 😐
Romance
The romance(s) just didn't do it for me. I didn't really get Rafe and Lia's romance. It was just there?? I don't know but i just didn't ~vibe~ with it. Also, I think I've finally accepted that I just don't like Rafe. He's just not my type and I just don't really like his personality. Honestly out of the main 3, Kaden was my favourite. Although, I wish his romance with Pauline (which I ship) was a bit longer. It lasted around 100 pages, which was really udnerwhelming. I don't loooove him but I do like him the most from everyone. Also, his looks reminded me of Maxon Schreave sooo yeah. 😊 #unpopularopinion🙄
Recommend? Yes or No?
Overall, yes, I do recommend this if you want to read an adequate YA fantasy trilogy. It's okay to good, and if you like minimal romance and slow-burn plots, then you will like this. For readers with my tastes, I urge you to get through this trilogy because it's worth having the backstory for the spin-off duology: Dance of Thieves, which I absolutely loved! Anyways, I hope this review was helpful... Bye!!