I loved Girl, Goddess, Queen so so much when I read it last year and I loved The End Crowns All even more which I did not expect going into it but am not annoyed about. <When reading this definitely feels older than Girl, Goddess, Queen with the content and the discussions covered, along with being harder to read with the content in it in many more ways and less of a fun summer romcom feel but not necessarily in a bad way.
The End Crowns All is a sapphic re-imaging of the Trojan War that follows Cassandra who has been gifted prophecy but cannot hold up her end of the deal that comes with it leading to her being cursed and discovering how much worse things can become for her. We also follow Helen who left Sparta for a new love but things are no longer feeling as easy as they should.
As this book is not yet out I don’t want to go into too much detail about what goes down but it was so good and if I could rate it six stars I think I would.
We get both Helen and Cassandra’s perspectives throughout the story which was such a powerful way to tell the story because you can really understand how this impacts them as characters and what they actually want from life instead of what they are being forced to have. The way we began to see Cassandra’s curse impact how she feels, how others view her and what she wants was really powerful and in many ways being in her head and experiencing just some of those visions helped that. And I loved at first seeing Helen from Cassandra’s point of view to then learn her as a character myself and who she was. The way Bea wrote this story was powerful and done in a way that I don’t think could have been more impactful in the long run.
I grew from the start of the book of not being massive fans of either Helen or Cassandra to absolutely loving them by the end. We got to know them in a way that meant I felt I could really understand them and they felt like they had a depth that I don’t always see, especially in Young Adult. The representation that we had was fantastic and the discussions that emerged from their past and present experiences were also done in an amazingly powerful way.
I also really enjoyed getting to know many (but definitely not all of) our side characters. There were a few of Cassandra’s siblings who I really liked and enjoyed reading about when they appeared in scenes and some other characters who we frequently saw that you can’t help but grow to like. The gods were absolutely horrible for much of this book but is that really a surprise?
As we grew closer to the end of the book I really struggled to stop reading needing to know how it was all going to end and as the amount of pages we had less became less and less I was definitely concerned about how it was all going to go down and if these amazing characters would get the happy ending I was desperate for them to have.
This was definitely a more challenging read than Girl, Goddess, Queen that is heavier with the myth however that did not stop it being an amazing book that I am so happy to have now experienced and soon be able to have on my shelves to look and everytime think of how important this story is and will be for so many people. This is almost guaranteed to be one of my top books of the year and I cannot wait to see what Bea Fitzgerald’s third YA will be about because I’m pretty certain I’ll love it.
Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
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