Kate Stradling

I disliked this story so much that was so glad when I was done. The premise is interesting and it could've been really enjoyable, but the characters ruined it for me.
The protagonist, Viola, felt kind of wooden to me, I didnt get a sense of her as a real person. Her diary entries and inner thoughts often read kind of stilted to me. Her brothers were ok, I just like them because they were the least annoying characters in this book. Sadly, Viola didn't have any female friends, and the only significant female character, Laelia, disliked her because she had a crush on the prince *eyeroll*.
I really hated the prince. He started with kissing the protagonist on the mouth without her consent and kept being pushy, annoying and needlessly jealous throughout the whole book. He's the main reason I'm rating this so low, every time he appeared in the story I felt annoyed or angry. I had to laugh when he asked Viola halfway through the book if he was a constant nuisance to her and she answered that she didn't know him well enough for that, when she had been annoyed and angry herself pretty much everytime she's been around him. And so, I didn't like the romance plot nor did I understand why Viola would fall in love with him. But maybe I'm just overly sensitive to pushy annoying jerks.

For anyone else who disliked this book, I would still recommend trying to read this author's other books. I loved all the other books by her that I've read so far (The Legendary Inge, The Heir and the Spare, Soot and Slipper).… (mehr)