Jennifer Nielsen's The Shadow Throne
The final book in Nielsen's Ascendance Trilogy (after The False Prince and The Runaway King) hits all the right notes and has plenty of great gotcha moments, but the whole thing is yet another war story. I'm kind of tired of fantasy war stories, because you know that--especially in a middle grade novel--the good guys will overcome all odds and win, and no beloved characters will die. So then it's just like reading about a chess game--there are no stakes, just moves and countermoves. And I find chess boring. To be fair, the characters here are all great and this is still a fun read, just like the first two. I'd definitely recommend this to middle grade kids (with the caveat that there should be more badass women in it). I'm just sick of war stories. B/B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in February.
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