Now I Rise by Kiersten White [We revisit the Stabby Queen]

I refuse to categorize this book as a young adult novel because:

a) The characters don’t sound like teenagers at ALL!

and

b) The book is pretty graphic in terms of sex and violence. Definitely, something I wouldn’t recommend to the younger audience (unless they can handle it).

In this book, we return to the cruel world of Lada, Radu and Mehmed. We start pretty much right after the events of Book one and I was surprised I remembered a majority of the things that had happened in it. In an effort to keep this book SPOILER FREE I’m going to just say that the plot was basically, travelling, alliances, war, lots of killing, character conflict and some sex.

So if you enjoyed the first book, you’ll like this one too.

The action in this book was fabtastic. The gore in this book is high. I absolutely loved how cruel some of the scenes were because wow if I was there I would have wanted to do the same (haha I’m normal, why do you ask??)

I also loved how the war scenes were not over-exaggerated and kept very true to real-life. The real war, back in the times, would always stretch out for days or weeks or sometimes even months.

I love Lada and how ruthless and done she is with everyone’s sexist shit. She has zero chill in this book and it made me laugh and cringe. I love Radu too. I mean, how can I not? His character conflict is the saddest.

The way the book ended blew my pants off! I absolutely loved it and I cannot wait for the third book. Everything in this book is so stabby and cruel and ugh me loves ❤

And I continue to dislike Mehmed. I didn’t see his appeal in the first book and I still don’t see it.

The plot was very slow around the beginning. They were just moving around and doing things, nothing important. This book fell into the trap of almost very second book trope, where it ended up basically being a filler novel. Its sole reason is to bridge the gap between the first and final book.

Another thing I want to warn the readers of this book is that while this book is historical fiction, it’s not very accurate. Please don’t depend on the historic teachings of this book. Read this more like a historical retelling.

Overall this was a great read and I would definitely recommend it to people who want to read about a strong and ruthless female protagonist.

Lots of love and murder,

Raven