#it will probably work bettwr if you go in with all three in hand and knowing that there are only three!

[magratpudifoot]

Finished 22 January 2024:

A Crown So Cursed - L.L. McKinney

There's a lesson here, should I ever get myself together and actually write a series.

I decided not to reread the first two books before jumping back into this one. I found them to be fine. They were interesting enough that I wanted to finish the story, but it wasn't something I was compelled to revisit. I wanted so much for this series to be for me, it looked like it would be perfect for me, and it just wasn't, and that's fine.

But this book took a while to be released (I AM NOT COMPLAINING, that's just how things are! You will never catch me shaming someone for taking their time with a project!), so I didn't remember all of the details of what came before. And I was fine with that.

This book does not waste any time helping you along if you don't remember the lore. In one notable instance, a character returns from a previous book without any specific information to indicate when or where Alice first met them. I still don't know what they did together previously. Again, I read the first two books three long pandemic years ago, and I accept responsibility for deliberately chosing not to do a pre-read re-read, but I am left at the end of it all blindly trusting that we didn't all just get Dawn Summersed because I still have no prior memory of this character.

I'm not asking for a Previously On. I don't want that 4th chapter in every Babysitter's Club book where the action stops for the copy paste of everyone's bio. And this series is very clearly written by a fandom writer for fandom readers, people who can be expected to have encyclopedic knowledge of their media. I get it. I am a fandom participant! I am obsessive about my favorite stories too! So it is fine if casual readers aren't included in the intended audience. None of this is judgement, just something to keep in mind when thinking about different people that might encounter a series and different uses they may have for a text.

This was also the most quadrillogy-feeling trilogy I have ever read. 25 pages from the end was the first time it even occurred to me this could possibly be the finale but brushed it off because there was so much character stuff left untended. 10 pages from the end, I was thinking, "I might just get the last book from the library instead of preordering this time." It wasn't until the acknowledgement that I was sure it was actually the end.

There's...a lot to explore in a follow up series, I guess?