The Assassin and the Princess
To compare this book to Graceling? NO WAY.This is fluff... an annoying fluff at that.
The first three chapters or so are excellent. We meet our heroine, she's all kind of bad, calculating how to kill everyone she meets in an instant. After spending a year in the mines after being betrayed she's rightfully a little pissed off.
Then the story literally falls off a cliff -
Our heroine never does anything all that great or special to prove why she was considered the GREATEST most FEARED assassin in the land.
She's terrified of the king - to the point she's practically pissing the carpet.
All the other competitors are supposedly just run of the mill soldiers or thieves but they are supposedly her competitors? So, no tension.
We have all these competitions - but the author too often tells us the end result and glosses over them - so no tension there.
And is the h, is the biggest tease ever, as she flirts and uses both Chaol and the Prince - then cuts the cord when she gets the gig.
This was a mess, great premise but our heroine never lives up to the hype. I loathe books where I'm told the h is kick ass then she promptly dissolves into a girlish puddle. And sorry, but the girl was betrayed, surely revenge was the only thing keeping her going in the prison mines but does she ever mention it again? Nope.
All hype - no delivery.
