The Betrothed Review

Hollis is a young daughter of nobility. Contrary to what many other nobles believe, she has truly won over the king and has his affections. At first, she is thrilled. After all, what girl would not want a king to be in love with her, especially in a world where all young girls grow up hoping to do just that? However, when a foreigner and his family come to stay at Keresken Castle where Hollis, other nobility, and the king reside in Coroa, she starts to questions if everything she ever hoped for is truly what wants. While she faces her new terrifying reality, she still has to undergo life in court and maintain a balance between what her heart tells her and her new duties as the love interest of the king.

This review is my opinion only!

Kiera Cass delivered yet another amazing book! The queen of royalty hit it out of the ball park again! I seriously cannot praise this book enough! If you were a fan of her before, this book will reinforce the fandom, and if you were not, you certainly will be now. I told myself I would not read this in one day. I would pace myself. Well, that did not happen, an here I am a day later writing my review. The only true complaint I have is that I have to wait a year for the next book because, after that ending, I need it NOW.

Throughout the book, you grow an attachment to the characters. I honestly didn't even realize how much of an attachment I had until the last third of the book when some *things* started happening. I do not mean this in that there was nothing happening prior to that point, but I will not say more so as not to include any spoilers. There was great character development, especially for the main character, Hollis. She grew considerably as a person, and watching her change was fantastic. Cass did a wonderful job depicting the mental struggles Hollis was experiencing and how each of those changed her in small ways until the changes were visible on the outside too. If you have read the author's other series, The Selection (which I very highly recommend), than you are familiar with America Singer's spitfire personality. She is one of the strongest female leads in all of the books I have ever read, and there were times when I was screaming at Hollis in my head to unleash her inner America. Well, this resulted in a very happy (but also really not happy) me at the end of the novel because Hollis grew into her strength, and my dreams of her being as strong as America were fulfilled. They are strong in different ways, (Remember, they are separate books and characters. It would be bad if they felt the same.) but are strong nonetheless. The other characters changed too, and it was cool the way Cass showed multiple sides of each character. Characters I though I did not like, I ended up loving. Others, I still did not like, but I had a bit more sympathy for them.

When you first start reading and a certain character is introduced, you come up with this idea of how the duology will end. Then, as you continue reading, you start thinking 'okay, I knew this would happen, but it is still cute so I am not too upset about the predictability.' Well, read even further and your whole idea may or may not explode in your face (I am not in your mind, so I cannot say for sure, but this was definitely the case with me). Any idea of what would happen next was completely thrown off for me, and I loved it! It made the whole thing more exciting and made me more invested than I already was.

If you are not familiar with Cass' work, you should know that her endings are always really strong; however, you may get mad at her because she is a fan of cliffhangers, meaning you will want the next book right away. Sadly, you will not get it until around this time in 2021. If you hate cliffhangers, you may not want to read this (even though it is absolutely fantastic in my opinion).

Her books are also always emotional rollercoasters (what can you expect from someone who said that, if she could make a crown out of anything, "it would be the unending tears of her readers"). There is always some sort of physical reaction from me (along with many, many mental breakdowns), and this time was no different. There were times I was absolutely giddy, and others where I believed I would start crying at any second. There is a high chance that you will be the same way if you do choose to read the book. Any book that I have a physical reaction to (unless I am super angry because it is just really awful to me) is great, and automatically memorable.

While the concept of the book may not be 100% original, Cass puts her own spin on it so it does not feel as if you are rereading a book with a similar idea. There are some tropes in it, such as a love triangle, but they are done well which makes up for it. I, personally, am always a fan of well-done love triangles, though, so that has to be taken into consideration. Also, I am still not sure if you could really call it a LOVE triangle, necessarily. Again, this is something you will understand after reading because I refuse to give spoilers.

Overall, this book was really, really well done, and easily ended up on my favorites list. I would HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone, really.

Rating: 5/5 stars

Author: Kiera Cass

Publisher: Harper Teen

# of Pages: 307

Genre: YA, epic royal romance

Series: The Betrothed series