Author: Victoria Aveyard
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication Date: September 1, 2015
Pages: 55
Format: Physical/Own (Part of Cruel Crown)
Queen Coriane, first wife of King Tiberias, keeps a secret diary—how else can she ensure that no one at the palace will use her thoughts against her? Coriane recounts her heady courtship with the crown prince, the birth of a new prince, Cal, and the potentially deadly challenges that lay ahead for her in royal life.
Review: I thought this was a great background into the previous queen we hear about in Red Queen. I keep hearing about Cal's mother in Red Queen, and I often found myself wondering more about what happened to her. So I stopped Red Queen and picked up this real quick to find out. I thought this was really interesting. We find out Coriane was never really interested in becoming queen. In fact, she dreaded the idea of having to go through queenstrial. I wouldn't blame her from what I read of it. She also wasn't very confrontational. She shied or hid away from a lot, which ironically was how she came to meet Tiberias or Tibe as she called him. She ran away from Elara (yes the very same Queen Elara we see in Red Queen) digging into her mind and ended up meeting and talking with Tibe, which then started their little romance. I thought it was interesting with Coriane and Tibe because we see so many of the traditions and rights shown in Red Queen dropped by the wayside. I won't spoil this, but you definitely want to read this and find out how Queen Coriane came into being the queen.
I found Coriane very likable compared to Elara. She seemed to be the most human of the silvers so far. She felt pain, she felt grief, she felt worry and fear and so many other things. She wasn't cold and unfeeling like Elara. She was actually interesting in building things, even though she'd never be allowed to. She had to deal with not only her royal duties, but also the fall of her house, the house of Jacos, due to her father. She even wanted change. She kept saying her son, Cal would not live the same life, that things would be different for him. You see her feeling and dealing with stuff unlike Elara.
The thing that bugged me about this was the ending. Did she really die the way it's implied she died? Because I was definitely not expecting that. And did Elara actually have more to do with it than was said? And why did Tibe then choose Elara to be the next queen when he knew how Elara treated Coriane? Was it because she was the only one of the other choices left who wasn't married yet? I definitely wish these questions were answered more. Maybe we'll find out more in the series??
Would you say I should read this BEFORE the Red Queen? I sometimes find it strange that Authors release the books and then write prequels or the ones that go in between two books in the series LAST! Like WHY!
ReplyDeleteRight! I'm not sure I understand that either. I think you should read Queen Song and Steel Scars before or at least during (I read these while about halfway through Red Queen). I think Queen Song gives a great background into the previous queen we hear about in Red Queen and Steel Scars gives us a good background into the Scarlet Guard and Farley who becomes a bigger character in Red Queen about halfway through. Plus Steel Scars also overlaps certain events we read in the beginning of Red Queen, just from a different POV.
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