Skip to main content

The End Crowns All book review




I was going to try and write this review to be shorter for a multitude of reasons,including do I could have the entirety in an Instagram caption and because I do not want to spoil the book in anyway, shape or form. Anyway as you may be able to tell by the end of the review that didn't really work for me. 

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. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Make My Wish Come True book review

  I have been a massive Rachael Lippincott fan for almost 4 years and always get so excited when she announces a new YA book. I was especially excited when she announced this one as it is a festive romance and I am also a festive romance lover.  This was a book I read throughout December and absolutely loved doing so. The romance was brilliant and included all the festive feels which I always look for in a festive book but isn’t always delivered on.  Make My Wish Come True follows Arden, a teen actor, who is determined to get a role so with her publicist lies that she is dating her childhood best friend, Caroline, who agrees to play along and write an article about their twelve holiday dates. However, as they begin spending time together again, old feelings begin to resurface.  Even while I read less and less YA romance as the years go by, Rachael Lippincott (and Alyson Derrick now) is an author I can always trust to deliver on the romance in a way that I enjoy and a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Tanglewood Bookshop book review

  This was my first Christmas read of the Year and it was a great one to kick off with. Once I was hooked I couldn't stop reading and ending up binging almost 200 pages in one day. I loved so many of the characters and the setting was so cosy, and ideal for a book lover.  The Tanglewood Bookshop follows Kazz who on the same day learns she has lost her job, is being evicted and her mum is moving to Spain so she decides to visit her best friend who owns a Tea Shop in the small Welsh village of Tanglewood. Where she is given the chance to open a Bookshop and meets Saul who is happy to show her around but she has been told doesn't have the best reputation.  This was a fantastic cosy Christmas read and it included so many things I love about festive books. The characters were the ideal book lovers to follow and as a book lover reading about book lovers is always a great experience. It was also nice that compared to many other book lovers whose lives revolve around books (which...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Coast is Clear book review

 The Coast is Clear follows Izzy, a 26 year old widow with two young boys, who is ready for a new start so moves to live near her brother Luke. With Luke's help she finds the ideal house for her and her young boys, the owner, Zander, being her brother best friend and she finds that she begins to fall for as they spend more time together.  This was a quick read that I couldn't put down and found to be really heartwarming. I couldn't put it down and wanted to continue to read about these characters who I really loved reading about.  Izzy and Zander were both well developed and complex characters who understood each other really well and were characters that I wanted to learn more and more about and found their backstories to be well built into the plot and not just there for the sake of the characters having some dramatic backstory. Izzy clearly always looked out for the boys best interests and doing her best to create the best environment she could for them. Her grief was ...
Post a Comment
Read more