A Princess of Roumania

This is a page turning, readable little book...

But I won't be buying the sequel.

Why?

Because these characters are all IDIOTS. And they talk all about how they are IDIOTS.

Unlike the brilliant The Sugar Festival, which also had unlikable characters, the world just wasn't amazing enough to keep me going through all the idiocy.

Granted, again: I kept thinking about the book. It was great to read on the bus in the morning and read before bed. It was really marketably written.

But I didn't like even one of the characters. Not even one. And they weren't even interesting or smart enough to make up for the fact that I didn't like them.

In fact, it wasn't even that I HATED them. That would have been some emotion, at least. I felt this sort of vague annoyance every time they did something idiotic, which was often.

I can understand that it makes more sense to write about people who do dumb things, who don't follow the prophecy, who make "wrong" or at least "unexpected" choices, who are selfish, confused, and make mistake after mistake. We all do these things. We encounter incompetence all day.

But this level of incompetence? Consistence incompetence? I mean, from more than just a couple of individuals? It's just staggering.

Mistakes are fine. But people with absolutely no redeeming qualities who aren't interesting enough to be evil but without the spine to be heroes are just annoying.

Screw this, I'm going to write about The Sugar Festival, which was way better.