The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Updated review 2/17/2014:
Queen of Attolia is full of political intrigue, the sort between nations at war, not really between individuals for the most part. The maneuvering is mostly at a distance, either with armies or secret attacks. I much prefer to be in the thick of the action instead of hearing about it by courier, so the first half moved very slowly for me. I also hated what was going on with Eugenides - I can't believe what happened to him at the beginning! One reason the first half is so slow is that he's dealing with what happened and he's not in the thick of things. It's not a very pleasant time - and with no clues as to what else he has on his mind.
I couldn't really start to enjoy it until the second half of the book when the action started to get more personal. And there was finally the twist I'd been waiting for, so I wasn't disappointed there.
The thing is, although I do like twists, there needs to be something to occupy my mind beforehand. Without any clues at all I find it kind of boring until the 'aha' moment arrives. This is the same difficulty I had with The Thief, and unfortunately it was repeated here. Since my rating is usually a subjective sense of how much I enjoyed the actual reading experience, it'll have to be 2 stars - being bored and fidgety is not my idea of 'liking' a book even when I can look back and see what the author did and be impressed. It's a shame, but I might not pick up the next book.
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