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Review: Troll Queen by Tara Grayce

Essie has her elf back...but his mind is still stuck in that dungeon. The war is over. A peace treaty has been signed. But Farrendel and Essie still have a battle ahead of them. Will Farrendel be able to build a new life with Essie now that he no longer has a war to fight? Melantha has ruined her life and the lives of all those around her. Now that she finds herself far from home and married to a troll who was once her enemy and captor, can she figure out what love and honor truly mean before it is too late for all of them? Not everyone in Kostaria is happy with peace or with their new elven queen. If Rharreth and Melantha cannot find a way to bring peace to their troubled kingdom, war threatens not only their happily ever after, but Essie and Farrendel's as well.

God-- ...

...

--DAMMIT.

This book took me, uh, months? To get through? Admittedly I’m a very slow reader and have the attention span of a fruit fly, but the previous three books were a breeze even for me, so something must’ve gone wrong here, right? Something terrible happened here.

Yes. Yes it did.

This review will be a little different, because with so many things wrong with this book and the way they intertwine and reinforce each other, I will have to split this into clear sections for my own sanity and to keep my thoughts organized.

The book is ostensibly about Melantha falling in love with Rharreth and coming into her own as the queen of the trolls while also dealing with the emotional aftermath of her betrayal in the previous book, while Essie and Farrendel deal with Farrendel’s PTSD, yes? Well. *strained smile that looks like a grimace*

This ain’t it. It juuust ain’t it, chief.

So strap in, I guess.

I will start with what’s easiest to demonstrate:

The writing

It’s bad. It wasn’t excellent in the previous books, but it was easy to read and did the job. Whenever there was weird phrasing or repetitive descriptions and word usage, it felt like a minor bump on the road. You went “Oh! Oops! Okay!” and kept moving. Here, it’s like you’re being pushed down a hill made of razor blades. It truly feels like this book didn’t have an editor, or the editor was inept, or the editor was a friend of Grayce’s and just didn’t want to make her feel bad. Some of these things are first draft errors I’ve seen in my own writing, but in a published book.

Check a look at some choice quotes:

From chapter 28:

“As Melantha marched after Rharreth, the first snowflakes began to fall. As the snow fell harder, the crunch of their boots on the snow was muffled.”

Still chapter 28:

“A clatter sounded as Rharreth pushed her skis and poles inside, then his own skis and poles. Finally, he pushed his pack ahead of him as he crawled inside.”

Chapter 33:

“Essie had felt him nearly die, the heart bond straining to keep him alive until she had passed out from the strain of it.”

Still chapter 33:

“How are the branches kept from being slippery?”

“There is magic placed on the walkways that melt any snow and ice before it becomes slippery.”

Still chapter 33:

“Farrendel’s gaze strayed past her, and when she turned in that direction, she caught sight of a large group headed in their direction.”

What HAPPENED here? How do you miss these amateur mistakes? Absolutely untenable shit right there, and so tightly packed, too? What happened, Tara?

Aside from the travesties above, there’s still a heavy emphasis on telling and not showing (we’ll get to that), general repetitiveness (do NOT take a shot every time the word “magic” is used, you WILL die), and overemphasis on things that should be obvious to anyone with half a brain but are needlessly spelled out either way. There’s just too much writing and not enough storytelling. This book felt bloated but didn’t even have purple prose or pretty writing as an excuse.

The plot .......... s

So this is a book with two simultaneous plots going on, right? One is about Farrendel adjusting to his life again after being tortured and Essie learning how to help him deal with his PTSD, while Melantha adjusts to being married to a troll among a people that hate her. Not a bad setup for a book, sound pretty good, actually! Farrendel’s PTSD (it’s not called that, but it’s pretty blatantly supposed to be that) is addressed, he can’t sleep, he has nightmares, he shuts people out and can’t seem to find any joy in life anymore. You think this is about to get difficult as Essie finds herself crying at night when he doesn’t show up for their precious nighttime hot chocolate sessions (not an innuendo, I’m being extremely literal right now).

And then something is a little off. Suddenly Farrendel is being recommended to a couple of “counselors” who have come up with the revolutionary idea of therapy. Okay, sounds good. They’re going off about how the mind can also be damaged in a war and needs to be taken care of and healed in a way that feels very PSA, cartoon-for-children type of way, but the author means well, so it’s fine. Farrendel also gets some strawberry and blueberry flavored medicine for his nightmares and panic attacks. And he starts working out and recovering physically! And you’re like, ok, seems like a good start, right? It’s all a little oversimplified, but it’s a fantasy story and the author is clearly trying to say something about mental health being important, right?

Then there’s a two-month time skip.

And Essie notes how she’s never seen Farrendel this happy, not even before the torture. And you look down and notice there’s still half of a book left and wonder, what now? Farrendel is fixed. His PTXD, as it has revealed itself, is fine. He fixed it off-screen with the help of “counseling” that we never see. He’s buff again. His trauma haircut is growing out. So what now?

Well, now we need to talk about funny novelty mugs and figure out Farrendel’s college application!

Yup. That’s the rest of Essie and Farrendel’s plot line, at least until the very end. Just them picking out funny mugs for the family, going ice skating, having snowball fights, and figuring out how to get Farrendel into human college. Tara Grayce had an interesting and potentially good thing on her hands, seemingly had something to say about mental health and PTSD and how hard it is to live with ... and then she put it on the floor, pulled down her pants, and took one big hot poo-poo all over it! :)

But wait! There’s the other plot, right? What about Melantha and her husband, Rharreth? They had an interesting setup in the previous book, and their peoples were more openly hostile to each other and recently went to war. Their feelings were ignited during a time when they were both tortured and hurt. How will they move past this and create a future together? Will true love bloom, or will they settle for teeth-clenched teamwork?

So remember how I said in my review of War Bound that there was interesting potential in their relationship? Well ...

Turns out, Rharreth had always had feelings for Melantha, from the very start. He wanted to marry her both for as a symbol for peace but also because he thought she was cool. So most of their plot is Melantha having to come out of her shell (except also not, we’ll get to that later) and also her enduring the hatred and racism of the trolls, who literally spit on her in public. Sometimes in front of Rharreth, while he does nothing? Not sure what Grayce was going for, here. Supposedly this section was about Melantha learning to stop bottling shit up and open up about her negative feelings. Soo ... she does? And Rharreth does nothing about it. Thanks for that one, Rarry. And then one of Rharreth’s cousins stages a coup and they have to run for their lives and regroup at the elven border.

And honestly, I didn’t hate this part of the book. These chapters were easily the best part of the whole experience, as there was actual conflict and actual tension and intrigue between the different troll factions, and you got to see the characters struggle for survival and victory. It wasn’t mindblowing, but compared to Essie giggling about funny-shaped novelty mugs (which happens in great detail), it felt like I was actually reading a book and not someone writing fanfic of their own characters.

As you can probably divine from this, these two plots don’t mesh well. Or at all. On paper, the blurb describes a decent setup. You see the emotional aftermath of war and torture while another set of characters are in the middle of a brewing civil war. There’s potential here for something to say about the trauma of war, the cycle of violence, one character recovering from it while another is thrust into it etc. But as I said, Farrendel gets over his PTXD in two months off-screen, and the rest of that side of the plot is a bunch of bullshit nonsense while the troll side is running for their lives. It’s not even meant to be ironic or darkly funny or anything. There’s nothing tying these two plots together aside from two of the characters on either side being related and having gone through bad shit together. Essie and Farrendel buy funny mugs and hot chocolate, Melantha and Rharreth freeze to death in a snow storm. And both of these are supposed to be enjoyed sincerely, side-by-side, simultaneously.

Imagine my whiplash.

Then, spoilers, at the end they get unceremoniously slapped together in one final big fight. Which Farrendel wins, because he’s a god among men, and Essie forgives Melantha because Melantha is sad, and then all three royal families sit in a tent, have a lil party, and exchange cute stories about how Farrendel used to be a little spider baby who climbed walls. No, really. Three gathered armies in one spot, directly after a historic confrontation ... and all three royal families just sit around a table and giggle and laugh. Three of the individuals gathered had just murdered other people and were still wounded from that fight, btw. But it’s okay! Let’s once again describe, in detail, various novelty mugs and talk about hot chocolate!

Do you guys see how fucked this book is in every way? And I’m not even halfway into the review! :)

The characters

The book is split into two storylines and the storylines are split into two POVs: Essie and Farrendel, and Melantha and Rharreth.

I’ll start with the least offensive: Rharreth. He was fine. He starts out underestimating Melantha but also seeing the fire in her and being attracted to it (which doesn’t make any sense, but ok). His POV is mostly concerning the conflict between the warrior families wanting war and thinking he’s a weak king, and the non-warrior people of his land who are starving and who need outside help from the humans and elves. In a better writer’s hands, this might’ve been an interesting character struggling in an interesting and believable conflict. How does one keep the balance between power and mercy in a culture that values strength? Here, he’s ... fine. He’s fine. It’s whatever. Strength is seeing strength in others and honor is standing up for what you believe in, bla bla bla.

Farrendel ... well, he’s just a guy, as usual. He’s hot but sad. But then two months pass and he’s not so sad anymore. He fucks Essie, finally! Good for him. His main storyline is that he’s learning to appreciate his magic as a tool for progress instead of destruction, mainly through human magical engineering. Good for him. Don’t care. We didn’t need paragraphs upon paragraphs of characters discussing college applications and courses with him. Maybe he could, I dunno, actually suffer the consequences of having been tortured again? Having PTSD as more than just one sad week? No? Too much angst, not enough funny mugs? Ok :(

Then there’s Melantha. She did the big betrayal in book 3. Or was it 2. I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. She’s here to learn how to be herself, which is to be less repressed and let out her anger more. So she gets some sparring sessions with Rharreth. But she’s also here to become more soft and to embrace her healing magic. Wait no um. She’s here to embrace her fighting spirit! Um but she’s also supposed to understand that sometimes healing is better than fighting. No no, listen. She’s always wanted combat magic, but she took a healer’s oath which prevents her from using magic to harm! Oh and she figured out she can put people to sleep in a combat situation! Plus, no oath prevents her from doing a good old stab! Oh but she vomits the first time she kills someone and swears off hurting people more. And then she learns that healing is sometimes more valuable. But healing can also be a strength and can be used in conflicts.

So how are you doing? Are you getting this shit? Because I’m not. I don’t fucking KNOW what Melantha’s arc is supposed to be, and tbh I don’t think Grayce knew either. It started out as her embracing her spunkiness and her negative emotions, with Rharreth telling her to stop hiding her true feelings behind her mask of perfect princess-ness, but then at the end she actively hides discomfort and displeasure because she’s learned to not hold onto her negative emotions. Henlo?????? Hewwo??? Mistew Gwayce? What the fuck is this? It feels like the author went in full steam for a girlboss narrative, then realized she hated writing women having negative feelings, so it became about Melantha learning to stop being a bitch and being more like Essie. Which is only reinforced by the last few chapters where Melantha spends several conversations with other characters admiring how happy and sweet Essie is. Growth? I guess?

And so we get to the Queen of Terror herself. Now, I am a little scared to write this as I worry Essie might manifest physically, unhinge her jaw and summon a plague of locusts from her mouth, but I need to say this: Essie is a Mary Sue. Cancel me now, Tumblr, I’ve said the bad word. She’s not the type that’s physically perfect and has every superpower in the world or is the best at everything. What she does have, however, is the power to slowly but surely bend everyone to her own will, mold everyone in her image. In my first review I described Essie as sort of a static character who drags everything down by being bland and unmoving. I’ve realized my mistake. Essie is not a statue among humans, she’s a black hole in a supermarket. The one sole constant to which all others are pulled. Essie devours uniqueness and conflict and intrigue until all are smiling as wide as she, giggle as much as she, love hot chocolate as much as she, are just as happy as she is. She’s the Beldam of this world, and her novelty mugs are the buttons which are sown into the eyes of every poor bastard that has the displeasure of interacting with her.

Melantha becomes more like her, respects her more for being so happy and choosing to be happy instead of dwelling on the negatives (yes, this is something genuinely said by a character about Essie and it’s supposed to be hashtag so true bestie). Other, “wise” characters talk about how good Essie is. Weylind, the elven king who’s hundreds of years old, learns to loosen up thanks to her influence. Farrendel doesn’t mind PDA because he just loves Essie so much. He’s more human now, better to match his human wife. None of that repressed elf shit. Essie doesn’t even have to suffer as a consequence of Farrendel’s PTSD, she cries once and then nothing bad ever happens again. She has fixed him. He’s perfect now. And one day, when they have kids, she’ll make sure that those children don’t inherit the bad habits of the elves. No, her children will be happy and open and joyful.

Or else ...

The yikes

Yes, Essie does actually think that, by the way. At the end when the aforementioned tea party happens after the bloody conflict with the troll warriors, Essie thinks how much she prefers it when the elves act more open and chatty, and how her and Farrendel’s children will only see this side of elven culture.

From chapter 40:

“If she and Farrendel had children someday, she wanted them to grow up seeing this side of their elven heritage, not the stiff and formal version filled with all too much tension. Not to mention that it would make the half the year that Essie and Farrendel spent in Estyra much more pleasant.”

So ... this is yikes, right? I would say the white jumped out at me, but they’re all fucking white, so I guess the white author jumped out at me. Imagine thinking this is a chill thing to have a protagonist think lmao. Yes Essie, pick and choose what you will teach your children of their other culture based on your own preferences and what you consider the most pleasant and convenient for you. It’s not bad if all those things you don’t pick for them are “bad” right? Instead of learning to respect the elves and their culture and mannerisms, why not just steamroll them into obedience and force them to be like you? It’s just so benevolent and kind of you to free them from the prisons of their own making :)

Anyway, this brings me to the fade-to-black in the room: wait, they’re talking about children? Have they even fucked yet? Yes. Congratulate Essie and Farrendel on the sex, guys. They’ve had it. I was surprised, too. There was no buildup, no flirting, no setting of the scene. Farrendel just decides that he’s ready to fuck and that it’s time for them to “act like they’re married” because ... marriage is defined by fucking? Uh ... I’m guessing Tara Grayce is Christian? Religious? The “no sex before marriage” vibes are fucking IN-TENSE. They get especially intense when the sex is awkwardly hinted at and then we’re quickly ushered out of the bedroom and it’s suddenly 2 months later, but after that nearly every scene with Essie, Farrendel and another family member includes at least one mention of their future children.

Like, the implications of “skip the sex and destroy any hint of sexuality, but absolutely do NOT stop talking about them having children” are absolutely insane. The undercurrent of fundie Christianity are so strong, and they get stronger with every installment when every female character is barely a character or is interchangable with another female character, or when she exists in relation to the men in her life or her children. The two queens, Rheva and Paige (Essie’s “besstie”), are both serene young mothers who have a mischievous but harmless edge because every fucking character needs a mischievous but harmless edge. They’re the same character but one has pointy ears. Then there’s Essie’s mother and Farrendel’s grandmother. Both are wise old women who have wise things to say, and both are eager for grandchildren and won’t shut up about it. All of these “feminist’s nightmare” characters are shoveled out dutifully whenever there’s a group scene with all the royals, only to be shoveled back inside when the men (and Essie, because she’s the center of the universe) have plot things to do. It’s absolutely comical and inexcusable when all the male characters, even ones with smaller roles, get to have way more screentime and get way more variation on their “generic nice guy” core while the women are just in the background smiling politely between shitting out kids like they’ve been having Taco Tuesday for two months straight.

Combined with Melantha learning to be less of a bitch and Essie being praised for being so positive and “choosing” to be happy, we get this very insidious, brain-washy world that tells women that you need to be pretty, gentle, serene and have lots of babies, and you’re only gonna be let out of your box when your children need to have cute moments with the real main characters aka the men. It’s absolutely buckwild. I don’t think it’s intentional at all, and in fact I believe the author is going for a lot of girl-power in her work, but the personal biases are so blatant it’s fascinating to look at.

Another yikes thing is obviously the way PTSD is “handled”. It’s extremely trite and moralistic, the book spends paragraphs upon paragraphs describing how soldiers get mentally wounded too and therapy and medication is just as valid as aid as a crutch is for a lost leg, and then we skip 2 months and Farrendel is happier than ever, without a single mention of a nightmare or him struggling at all. The book expects you to respect and acknowledge PTSD as a real condition while doing none of the legwork itself, because that would take time away from novelty mugs and college applications. Oh it gives us some “it won’t always be easy” crap, but no specific mentions of breakdowns or relapses, no showing of it not being easy. His healing is not even linear, it’s exponential. He’s happier than he’s ever been, even before his second torture. That’s how great he’s been doing in two months. And if that’s not fucking offensive enough, there’s also a very alarming insinuation/symbolism where Melantha has to re-break a kid’s arm to set it and heal it properly, and this is later compared to what happened to Farrendel. The book actually implies that Farrendel had to be tortured in order to heal from his previous PTSD. That his mind had to be broken again in order to be reset.

And that’s really fucking rich coming from a book that preaches about PTSD being a real and serious issue. Just retraumatize yourself horribly and spend 2 months in therapy and you’ll be fine! Your new PTSD and your old PTSD will be healed, and then finally you can apply for college :)

There’s also some very interesting and very yikes shit happening in terms of the royalty and their relationship to the lower classes, almost certainly none of it intentional. Essie has a servant girl in her and Farrendel’s house who has to get up and make them hot chocolate whenever Farrendel gets a nightmare. It’s written as this very kind and obliging thing the servant girl chooses to do, and Essie is like “oh no tee hee you don’t have to do that!” but like ... There’s no reason for Essie not to do this herself aside from convenience, and it’s not like the girl can just refuse? The power imbalances are just not acknowledged at all, almost like Tara Grayce only wants to play with the aesthetic of royal characters without engaging with what it means to be royalty, in a very sort of Disney-esque way. And we’re supposed to think that Essie accepting this frankly unreasonable thing isn’t an abuse of power, and that the servant is doing this out of her own goodwill? Hello?

Then there’s a moment where Essie is creaming herself at how good Farrendel is with kids when he’s playing with one of her nephews, only for Farrendel to go up to Paige two sentences later and give her the child he was just playing with because the kid pooped himself, and Farrendel has a disgusted look on his face. Father material, truly. What’s funny here is that he 1) gives the child to Paige, not Averett, who then 2) gives the child to a nanny standing nearby. And this just ... happens. And nobody comments on it, despite this having a whole mountain of implications that any writer worth their word would unpack. Like, why is Essie jizzing her pants at Farrendel being a good dad when he’s disgusted with the idea of changing diapers? Oh, because Essie thinks it’s normal for royals to not change diapers themselves, that’s how normalized it is for nannies to take care of royal kids. Then why does it matter if Farrendel is a good father, when the “unpleasant” part of parenting will be done by someone else? Anyone can be a good parent when you’re only exposed to the fun bits of the kids’ lives and not the ones that matter just as much if not more. This implies Essie expects nothing of Farrendel as a father but having fun with the children, and since she didn’t question Paige giving the work of diaper-changing to a nanny, that means she expects other people to take care of her children as well. Or does she assume she’ll do the bad shit while Farrendel gets to be a good dad only doing half the child-raising required of him? What is happening here? We don’t fucking know!

This brings me to ...

The stupid

Tara Grayce doesn’t know what royalty is. Either that, or she knows and can’t be assed to engage with it. It seems that, to her, they’re just people who happen to be in charge, and there’s nothing said about the balance of power, or really power as a concept at all. Because everyone’s just such a good person! :) And everyone who isn’t a good person gets killed or “redeemed” so they can return to the status quo. The only thing that even slightly touches upon the royals’ duties is Essie and/or Paige visiting orphanages and hospitals, but that’s framed as charity work they do out of the kindness of their pure hearts. Meanwhile, whenever Averett starts talking politics, trade deals, alliances, the characters and narration laugh at him. That silly King Averett, constantly being occupied with king stuff! Can’t he relax and chill, like a normal person?

No, Tara, he can’t. He’s a king. And for a king, he does seem so be doing a lot of fuck-all whenever he’s on the page, so him at least hinting at being a king whenever he’s present is a breath of fresh air, because nobody else seems to be fucking doing anything aside from enjoying the labors of the common people for days on end.

Then there’s poor Weylind, the last bastion who stood against Essie’s eldritch powers. I had hopes that he would prevail, but no. He actually ends up in a royal man-pile with Averett, Farrendel, and Essie’s other brothers. Then he joins them all for a snowball fight.

Yes. The elven king who’s hundreds of years old, who’s been described as strict and unemotional, falls in a pile of snow with the human king and the other princes. And they all giggle about it. Because Essie is there and her brothers are there too and the entire human royal family have horrible brainwashing powers that make even the most normal/realistic characters behave in cutesy fanfic twee ways that leave you scared and confused. We’ll touch on this more later.

Finally, there’s Edmund. I’ve already mentioned in my previous reviews that Edmund as a character is fucked to hell and back. He’s a prince, but he’s also a spy, who does spying, personally, in person, first-hand, personally. Grayce very clearly is trying to write him as a manipulative and clever chess-master type, who’s always in control because he’s got all the info. Except he actually, get this, gets caught. He gets caught the first thing he does, but not only that, he gets recognized as the human prince (because he wasn’t wearing a disguise while spying) and he gets taken hostage. And then Tara Grayce does her damndest to try and convince us that he’s still smugly in control, after being recognized and captured.

*gestures wildly*

Tara? Henlo? Anyone home? How do you expect us to think highly of this man when HIS VERY EXISTENCE IS FLAWED BECAUSE OF THINGS THAT YOU YOURSELF HAVE DEMONSTRATED SEEMINGLY WITHOUT BEING AWARE OF IT? It’s genuinely hilarious to watch this narrative try and paint Edmund as a mastermind in the same breath as it shows us exactly why he’s stupid and ineffectual and would be fucking dead ages ago if this ever was an actually well-written book. Absolutely fucking amazing how dumb this shit is.

The reason I like writing about royalty is simple and cheap and I will admit it freely: It’s an easy way to make interpersonal drama have massive stakes. But here, there’s none of that. There are no stakes. The royalty here are just ... people who are fancier than everyone else, who are important in theory but without any of the weight or downsides or implications behind their power. This book pretends royalty are just people and can just be people while also inexplicably having all the power in the world, but without corruption or consequences or, really, anything.

I don’t know how we got here. I don’t know how anyone could get here.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!

I think I’ve pinpointed the problem with this book. With Grayce’s writing/storytelling style in general, actually, as it was present in Midsummer Bride as well. I’ve finally got it.

It reads like it’s written by someone whose main exposure to fiction comes from fandom.

Now what the fuck do I mean by that? Well, you know how people write meta about characters? How they analyze character arcs, how they link quotes and events from the start of the story to the end of the story and act like they’ve found the Holy Grail? You know those incorrect quotes posts? You know coffeeshop AUs?

Imagine someone writing all of that ... but for their own characters. And then they explain how they wrote it and what it means.

That’s the vibe here. I’m not accusing Tara Grayce of anything or trying to psychoanalyze her, just explaining what I feel when I read her work. It’s like somebody saw all those posts and all that love from fans about work they’ve enjoyed, and thought “hey, I want that for me, too!” And then, instead of spending time on actually developing these characters and this world and trusting the reader to put these things together on their own, Grayce simply ... spelled it out.

Characters have to learn about loving and being loved? Have them think about what they’ve learned, have them monologue at others at what they’ve learned. Want people to make those comparisons between the start of the journey and the end? Fuck it, cut out the middle man and do it yourself by spelling it out. Want your main character to learn to forgive your other main character because it’s feel-good? Fuck it, ignore all the potential of lasting interpersonal conflict and redemption and the fact that these things take time and just write her forgiving her for stupid reasons!

PTSD is a real and serious condition that needs attention and care and can be hard to live with? Yeah, just say it is all those things and then don’t bother showing it. Farrendel and Essie are so squee and cute together? Don’t make the reader come to that assumption on their own, reinforce what you want them to think with endless cutesy scenes of them doing nothing but being domestic. Those coffeeshop AUs won’t write themselves!

Everything is constantly telegraphed. Every interaction, every journey, every moral lesson, every character arc. None of it is show, all of it is tell, explained carefully and precisely, usually by the character themselves going on long diatribes about the true meaning of love/happiness/honor/strength. And you get the sense that the author means well and wants to be wholesome and affecting, but you’re left wondering if this all is going to be on the exam, because you feel like you’re sitting in a lecture while someone’s OCs talk at you about how deep they are.

The worst part isn’t even the telegraphing of all of this, I can excuse a cheesy monologue or two. The worst part is that they’re not earned at all. No step of these “journeys” or arcs goes unsaid. Whenever anything significant happens, characters will tell you why it was significant and what it meant to them. Whenever a character has personal issues, they always communicate them flawlessly to others, without any conflicts or disagreements or misunderstandings or follow-ups. Like Essie, these books are fundamentally against any negativity, any impact or conflict that disagreements and differences can create, and this allergy to conflict create narratives that are smooth and easy and don’t change or affect anything, all while insisting that evolution and change is happening. There are no clashes of personality or motivations, no conflicts to resolve and evolve from. None of those grand monologues or realizations are earned. They don’t feel like culminations of a character arc, of a character’s struggles and labors and evolution, but a conclusion to a bad Ted Talk. Melantha doesn’t evolve as much as she knows from the start what’s wrong with her, and it’s just at the end that she starts acting differently because everyone else told her it was okay and that’s what they wanted from her, but it’s fed to the reader like she’s been on a grand personal journey, all while explaining to us every step she takes and what it means.

This is why all of these characters are so flat and boring as well, I think. Their differences are surface-level because fundamentally, they’re made of the same stuff, aka nothing at all. Any of them could go through these same non-arcs and non-conflicts and have these exact same monologues and nothing would feel different.

And while it’s clear the author probably had good intentions, the fact that characters tell you all these things and she’s clearly going for sweet and feel-good narratives, all it does is frustrate you. Because it’s all sugar without salt, reward without labor, fluff upon fluff upon fluff while anything else is skimmed over but I proooomise it was super important. Because the narrative assumes you’re stupid, that you’re a fucking child who needs to be explained at lest you make the mistake of having your own feelings or thoughts on what’s happening, all while not showing you any of it actually happening and just telling you that it’s really good and emotional and life-changing when it’s really the blandest, cheesiest, most melodramatic yet soulless shit you’ve ever read.

I don’t know if it’s intentional, honestly. Maybe this is all a joke, and the Troll Queen refers to Tara Grayce herself. She’s certainly had a laugh at my expense.

But I don’t think so. I think she genuinely believes this is how you write an effective and touching narrative. And given the healthy amount of positive reviews, it doesn’t seem to be wholly inaccurate. Maybe I’m the rube, here.

But I prefer to make my own decisions of what is cute and what is touching. I prefer to watch characters evolve instead of listening to them telling me they’re evolving. I don’t need the narrative censoring all the negativity as if it doesn’t exist. I don’t need the narrative to spell things out for me, to give me cue cards of when to laugh or when to squee and when to be in awe of the character development. I want to do that on my own, as long as you show me. And you’re not showing me shit, Troll Queen.

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