Review: Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian

I really thought that I would love this book. I had this thought that because it looks incredibly amazing, and because the summary was good, that I would love this story like crazy. That was not the case. Not at all. And I'm left feeling more than disappointed after finishing this book. I'm angry too, because I did not like it one bit.

I'm giving this book one star. Which is my first one this year. And it is very much deserving, sadly. I'm also going to start by giving a fair warning, this review will be very negative. And honest. And full of spoilers. I will not say anything about the author, as I don't know her. I'm sure she is a lovely person. But her book was not.

And I very much need to share all of my feelings about this book. Because, oh my gosh, how I hated Ash Princess. I hated it more than I have hated anything in such a long time. And while I have so many thoughts about this book, I'm not sure how I'm going to write them all down. Shall try my best. And shall try my very best to not share that much either. But it will be hard. As I really truly hated this book. And writing reviews for books I hate is the most fun, haha. I cannot help it. It's so easy sometimes, to share reasons of hate. But I shall also mention that I do not hate the author at all. She is not her book. And in this case, her book was unfortunately all kinds of horrible. But do know that others may love this book a lot. I was not one of those. Reading it was painful.

And not in a good way. I had heard that this book was dark and amazing and that the girl was awesome. None of those things were true. I knew from the very first pages of the book that I would not like this. The writing was weird, and there was way too much boring info dumped into those pages. There was no need for that in the first chapter. Not at all. It was too much, and not done well either. Sadly, the writing did not approve. I hated it from beginning to end. Ahh. Felt like I was reading someone's bad diary. Was so bad.

This book tells the story of sixteen year old Theodosia. When she was six years old, her home was taken over by someone else. Her mother, the queen, was killed in front of her. Thora has been a prisoner in her old home for the past ten years. And this could have been such a good story. But it was not. Everything about this book completely sucked and gosh, I do not know how I shall manage to write down all of my feelings about it. Because I have so many of them. And I want to share all of it. Hope I can manage that.

We learn some things about Thora in this book. She has been whipped a lot by the orders of the kaiser, the man who now rules her home. That is just about the only abuse she has had for the past ten years. She has her own rooms, she's fed all the time, and she has a best friend too, Cress. But then one day a rebel is brought before her, someone who turns out to be her own father. And she is forced to kill him. I felt nothing for this. Nothing at all. But it supposedly changed everything for Thora. Huge eye roll. Sigh.

Because the biggest issue that I had with this one was Thora. And her memories. She was six years old when everything happened. Yet the way she remembers things, you would think she was sixty. No one, I repeat, no one has that many memories from when they were six years and younger. Yet she remembers every single detail, years back. What a bunch of crap. I'm still so angry about it. That is not good writing. That is simply all kinds of annoying. And unreal. And I did not like reading about it one bit. It was so bad.

This book is about Thora suddenly realizing that she is not Thora, but Theodosia. That she is done being a prisoner. And yeah. That did not seem real at all, to be honest. She had no issues being a prisoner. Yet now she's suddenly planning all kinds of ways to rebel and things like that. Because, same day she killed the man, whom she remember every thing about from she was six, hahaha, a boy shows up as a servant. It's the one friend she had when she was little. Oh joy. Can you believe it. He's there to save her. Hahaha.

At the same time, the prinz came back home, the son of the kaiser. And he is suddenly all kinds of into her. He has been away for five years. She is the prized prisoner of his father. But sure, he cannot help but fall for her the moment he sees her. Hahaha. All of this book was so cliche. And not in a good way. I am not going to mention all of the plot. Just that it is about Thora trying to leave the palace, and it is taking a couple of months, and half the book at least being incredibly slow and boring. I barely survived reading it.

And she is always going on and on about how well she knows the boy from her past, whom is there to rescue her. How she can hear the doubt in the way he breathes, after having seen him for a couple of hours. Hahaha. Oh, how this book killed me with bad. And of course, there is a love triangle. Because of course this childhood boy is madly in love with this girl. And she couldn't help but fall in love with him. She even thinks that. What. They share a couple of kisses. It was so awkward. They do not know each other.

The other love interest was the prinz. Whom Thora is planning on seducing and then killing, so that she may escape. But oh, she spends a few hours with him, and now she's in love with him too. And they kiss a lot. And he is madly in love with her. And hahaha. This book was so not good. She is always going on about how he is the enemy, how he has killed so many, and ugh. This place was a place of war. Killing is what happens. She hates him, then she loves him, and hates him again. And it was incredibly annoying.

And Thora was not a good person at all. She plans to kill her only friend, Cress. Because this girl spoke something to her, and now she is all like, she was never my friend, and uuugh. So cliche. And childish. And I cannot get over how bad this book was. It was not dark. One whipping scene. Badly written. Not sad, not heartbreaking, I felt nothing. It was just bad. The whole book is about how Thora is thinking of her people, how she has to save them, have to be their queen. Yeah. No. This girl completely sucked.

And now I have written way more about this book than I was going to. But I could not stop myself. And I do not even want to stop now. But I will. Just thinking about this book makes me angry. I'm hoping so so much that I will forget about it shortly. But I doubt it. Bad books never leave. Ugh. There was so much bad about Ash Princess. I shared a lot of it. But that wasn't even all. I do not know how anyone could like this book. I am sorry to say so, but gosh, how I hated this one. It was not a good book. Not at all. Not for me.

I suppose I should feel bad about writing this very negative review. But I do not. I believe in being honest about your feelings about books. And I was being very honest. This book sucked. And I am so upset that I read it, haha. But I had to finish it, once I started, because of the gorgeous print ARC I had of it, from a trade. But I will never be reading this book again. And I do not recommend that anyone else does either. I suppose that a lot of people will love it. But you should not. I am sorry. But not that sorry. It was not good.

 

Goodreads - The Book Depository - Amazon