The Betrothed

By: Kiera Cass

Narrated by: Jasika Nicole

Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's Summary

A would-be queen. A handsome young king. A perfect match...or is it?

From the number-one New York Times best-selling author of the Selection series comes The Betrothed, a glittering royal romance sure to captivate her legion of loyal fans and lovers of courtly intrigue alike.

When King Jameson declares his love for Lady Hollis Brite, Hollis is shocked - and thrilled. After all, she's grown up at Keresken Castle, vying for the king's attention alongside other daughters of the nobility. Capturing his heart is a dream come true. 

But Hollis soon realizes that falling in love with a king and being crowned queen may not be the happily ever after she thought it would be. And when she meets a commoner with the mysterious power to see right into her heart, she finds that the future she really wants is one that she never thought to imagine. 

©2020 Kiera Cass (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Sadly Disappointing

Let me preface this by saying, I’ve adored every book I’ve read by Kiera Cass... until this book. The Selection series is one of my all time favorite series! 💕 I also loved The Siren. This book didn’t even seem like it was written by her! Or if it was, it seemed like a rough draft at best. I feel absolutely traitorous writing this, but it’s how I feel. 🤷🏻‍♀️
***SPOILERS***
First off, I’m sorry but I could hardly listen to the narrator. Her voice and the way she read really grated on my nerves. The way she spoke for the main character reminded me of Snow White. 🥴 At first I thought the reason I wasn’t enjoying the book was entirely because of the narrator. It turns out, that wasn’t the case. 😬
Second, I genuinely thought I had missed a preface or a chapter, the way the story launched right in, as if the reader already knew the characters and their entire backstories. Also there wasn’t much description of any of the characters, nor did any of the characters seem to have much depth. 🤷🏻‍♀️
Third, I didn’t really like Hollis. It’s hard to read a book when you don’t really like the main character. 🤦🏻‍♀️ She’s spoiled, self-absorbed, naive, and generally annoying. King Jameson at least had hints of being shady, and I was hoping there would be more on that, but alas, there wasn’t. Silas seemed sweet, but kind of dull and one-dimensional. She barely knew him as they entered into their forbidden “romance.” Hollis seemed to be in love with his family the most. 🤷🏻‍♀️
Probably not last, but most importantly, THERE WAS NO PLOT. Literally no conflict. Not even really a love triangle. I kept hoping Jameson would at least fight for her or SOMETHING. I could sum up the entire story in one sentence: Hollis is unhappy because of her first world problems, and doesn’t understand politics. The end. 🙄
I truly was so excited for this book, and wanted so badly to love it, but I just couldn’t. I’m so disappointed! With that said, I’m still a fan of Kiera Cass, and will continue to read what she writes! 💕Hopefully the next book will be better. Honestly nothing could be worse, so there’s that! 🤣

Boring

I was expecting a lot from this book, but it turned out to be boring. Honestly the plot made no sense and the characters were so annoying that I wanted to stop listening. In short the book is a waste of time

Haunted by the ghost of Eadlyn 👻

*IN MY OPINION*It is more important to make your characters likable, rather than relatable. Likable characters are unique and fleshed out people with their own little quirks and personality traits that could easily be seen in the real world. When authors try to make their characters more relatable, it's always in an attempt to include as many readers as possible. This leads to characters becoming many shades of gray, and emotional blank slates that cause readers to project their own personality on to the character, and trick themselves into thinking the main character is just like them (no, that's just bad character development).

This was a huge issue at the end of The Selection series, and it seems to have continued into this one. For further elaboration, see my review of The Crown.

The bottom line is that Hollis is boring and bland, and I don’t care about her. Delia Grace is easily the best character, simply because she's the most developed. In a single chapter you learn more about her than you do about Hollis throughout the entire book. She has much more personality, depth and drive than Hollis, who is just a blank slate of a character. Hollis has no personality, no nuances, nothing to make her stand out in a memorable way other than just being the main character. Which highlights another trend that continued from the end of The Selection, in that we're given another main character with no goal or purpose.

However, in conjunction with The Selection series, I have formed the opinion that Kiera Cass is weirdly good at world building (while her worlds aren't very original, they're effective 👍). I stopped caring about the romance because it was dull, boring and had a lot of missing pieces that should have been explained, but weren’t. The most interesting part became the political aspects of the story, and how all these relationships, betrothals and love triangles affected the balance of power among the various countries, which the ending only multiplied.

The ending is The Betrothed's saving grace (the fact that I like the ending probably says more about me than it does the book 😈). In an attempt to keep this spoiler free, I will simply say that the book ends on a tragedy. But in terms of character development, it's the best thing that could've happened 👏👏👏👏👏. Our main character has now gone through a tragedy, she now has a defining moment that is unique to her, one that should shape her for years to come (SHOULD). Equally as important, Hollis no has motivation and purpose going into the next book.

Meh at best.

It was too rushed. No real character development, no real connection to any single person, and no real reason behind the love interest. Best friend was a back-stabbing B, King was described as young (as were a lot of these characters but I legit have no clue how old they are), parents were evil for no real reason, and the narration stilted and really uninteresting. Gave it three stars only because the main point of interest was the friendship between Isolte queen, and the intrigue behind the riders of death.

There's almost no story

This is one of those books where you spend the whole time hoping something will happen. I kept going, thinking the author maybe was just trying to throw the reader off. But nope. There's just no real story here of substance.

very enjoyable storytelling

if you are looking. for a story to entertain yourself this will do the job.

Okay story

My overall thought on this is that it's okay and that's the best I can say.

I'm sure it's hard to follow up after having huge success on a previous series, but it's hard for me to reconcile that this was written by the same author as The Selection. The characters were bland and not relatable, Hollis in particular is boring and naive. I get that she's been so sheltered growing up at court and knows nothing of the real world, but at some point you think she'd start to realize that something is up. I didn't think either romance was compelling and the ending, while not something I exactly saw coming, wasn't enough to save 300 pages of boring.

For the pros, I did enjoy Valentina and would love to know more about her. I also like the female friendships, even if they don't make sense because characters do a 180 with their personalities. This was a quick read and the ending does have a little hope that maybe book two will be better.

Wait for the sequels

This ends on such a cliffhanger that it is a very unsatisfying end. The story isn’t the sweet romantic romp I had expected. The narrator gets better as the story progresses. Either that or I got used to her.

Shocking. Shattering. Spectacular.

I knew Cass was going to defy all of my expectations. But I could never have imagined by how much! Once again, a new voice to get used to in Jasika Nicole, but then Hollis is a brand new character who should stand out on her own.

⚖️ Plot: I had no idea what I was getting into. Twist upon twist takes you to a place you never expected to be. So much heartbreak, yet satisfying nonetheless. That’s a great talent of Kiera Cass.

🗺 World: A wonderful era of lords and ladies, whilst being one where many injustices could be gotten away with. Truly well balanced with a whole cast of characters who are light and dark at the same time.

💑 Characters: Let’s take a moment to appreciate the names in this book. Hollis, Jameson, Delia Grace... so unique and full of charm. I never trusted Jameson, but I still want him to be happy. I can’t wait to see what Hollis does next. So many possibilities now that she is royalty on the other side of the realm!

Maybe will be better when the series is finished

I really love Kiera Cass and her books but this one was anticlimactic. Clearly it appears to be part of a series. My suggestion would be to wait until the series is finished otherwise the book as a whole is disappointing.