Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Lovely box set. I was very pleased. I've only read the first three books so far, so I can't say much about The Heir or The Crown. But as for the first three books, they were pretty good. Characterization was fairly solid, though I felt that America was getting just a touch wishy-washy near the end. The love triangle started off okay, but after a while became seriously tiresome, and all the "he/she loves me, he/she loves me not" stuff got really irritating after a while. Everybody just really needed to have a long sit-down talk with each other - and maybe a relationship counselor. The world building was fair, but not the best i've seen. We didn't really need a lot, since most of our time was spent at the palace. It didn't detract from the story, but I really would have liked to seen a better explanation of the castes and how they functioned. It didn't always make complete sense. One word of Caution for parents though, these books are not quite as clean as a lot of people say. There are a handful of mild swear words peppered throughout the books, and though the main characters don't go 'all the way' romantically, they do come a lot closer than I appreciate reading about - dangerously close. These are the main reasons why I had to detract one star from this review. I would not recommend the series for anyone younger than 15.