The Betrothed Book Review

Recently, multiple authors have grappled with the idea of justice in their novels, with varying levels of success. They often comment on laws, customs, or toxic cultures. That is what I thought this book might take a stab at, with the epigraph "Preserve the law, for if we undo one, we undo them all." There's a lot less about justice and law in this book than I thought. In fact, this book analyzes a court culture, hierarchies, and choices in a world where there aren't many. Our heroine is flawed, her future supposedly determined, but when her world is turned upside down, it is up to the readers to understand why. The Betrothed is a fantasy novel built on the unexpected. With a love triangle that isn't the end game, a determined yet flawed heroine, and a society steeped in tradition, Kiera Cass breaks away from the glittering style of court life. Instead, we enter a grittier royal romance where relationships are constantly tested and nothing is as it seems.

Kiera Cass, #1 New York Times bestselling author, is the author of the Selection series which has gained a wide fanbase and is soon to be adapted for the screen. Cass graduated from Radford University with a B.S. in History. After growing up in South Carolina, she now lives in Virginia with her husband and two kids. In addition to The Selection series, Cass has written a standalone fantasy novel, The Siren, and her highly anticipated seventh novel, The Betrothed, is what I'll be reviewing here! This review does contain some spoilers, so read along at your own risk! If you're interested in more of my reviews of Kiera Cass's work, you can find them all here. 

Lady Hollis Brite has grown up at Keresken Castle, surrounded by other daughters of nobility, all of whom spend their days vying for their king's attention. When King Jameson declares his love for Hollis, she's thrilled -- in fact, it's almost like a dream come true. It would be, if not for the fact that she might not want to become queen after all. And when Hollis meets a commoner who seems to understand her better than she understands herself, Hollis is faced with two futures: one that she's always believed she wanted, and one that she truly wants.

Hollis Brite has captured the attentions of King Jameson -- and so what? It's not like the king would marry her, since she has no political advantages. At the very beginning, Hollis reads like a heroine out of a Jane Austen novel. She's been ingrained into this court-centered lifestyle and doesn't question its customs. When given the chance to become queen, she falls easily into Jameson's orbit and wants to prove herself to him. In fact, she ends up deciding to prove herself capable to everyone at court. But she relapses, overwhelmed with the immense responsibilities of becoming queen, and it is in this moment of weakness she finds comfort in Silas. In the end, the only way I can view Hollis Brite is as a girl endlessly trying to prove herself, with the hopes of finding acceptance somewhere. I have tried to analyze her character arc, only to determine that her character is rather set in stone, and her decisions fluctuate when the situation around her changes. No matter what happens, she's determined: to wear the crown, or to not wear the crown, to stay or to go. But her decisions are mostly always swayed by external forces, rather than internal. This is what possibly makes her seem like a less attractive characters than other fantasy favorites, or even less attractive than America Singer, Cass's famed heroine from The Selection. I think that Hollis is flawed, something she herself has noted, but we can't give her character a grade just yet. I have a feeling that she needs more time to prove herself after the way she left things.

The two men Hollis has her eyes on are King Jameson Barclay, and the Isolten refugee, Silas Eastoffe. Both men, in a way, can offer her the life she's always dreamed of. One man can make her a legend, and the other can make her happy. Both are interesting characters in their own ways. Jameson, at first, truly seems to love Hollis in a way that every girl wants to be loved by a king. When we get further into the novel, it's evident that Jameson doesn't care about love, but about giving a queenly woman the crown. Jameson doesn't care about Hollis; he can say pretty things, but in his heart, politics will always come first. With Silas, it's harder to tell. It is true, Hollis and Silas only have a few stolen moments. For a lot of readers, that makes it difficult for them to understand why Hollis and Silas would have fall in love to begin with. Compounded with how Silas says pretty things similar to the King, it's difficult to understand how Hollis would have loved (and chosen) Silas. This is one of the major critiques I see in all the reviews for this book so far, and I have to say I agree. And, after that major plot twist, I was disappointed I'd just spent most of the book invested in who she was going to chose. In a way, this plot twist reminded readers that this book wasn't really about the love triangle, but Hollis's responses to it, the choices she made, the character she was trying to be. I first had this feeling when I noted how off the pacing felt -- it was hard for me to understand why she loved Jameson at all, because we didn't get to see their first encounter. I could understand Hollis's desire to be a queen and a legend, but I felt like if there was love between the two, I didn't feel it. That's when I began to understand this book wasn't about love, not really. It was about choice, in a way The Selection never was. This book is dirtier than The Selection, and I think a lot of people are upset that it isn't this kind of beautiful, predictable love story.

I was excited to open this book and see a map. I'd despaired in my reviews of The Selection series books that we never got a map, and thus it was easier to see Illéa as a dystopia, rather than a fantasy. The Betrothed is so clearly a fantasy, slated to be glittering: the hardcover of the book is shiny gold, the cover is a glossy gold, and while we get a whole map of this fantasy world, we truly only focus on two countries and forget the rest. The story itself is slated as Book 1 of the "Chronicles of Coroan History." There is a fairytale feeling mixed with a Jane-Austen-era-esque air at the beginning, and it quickly dives into something grittier: parts of the cover are, after all, cast in shadows, and the gold isn't exactly bright and gleaming. Whoever designed the presentation of the novel did a great job, I will give them that. It lends credibility to the story that readers might not be reading as deeply into as the story calls for. The language itself is simple, not unlike Cass's approach when writing The Selection series. I think, instead of character and romance, Cass focused a lot on plot in this novel. It shows in how we don't get a visual for a lot of the characters, and how we sometimes don't understand Hollis's choices. In a way, the plot (and the twists at the end) redeemed this lack of character development. I certainly could not have guessed the ending, and I highly doubt other readers did either. At first I was angry: after all, I'd just invested so much time trying to learn Hollis, Jameson, and Silas. But this book was always about Hollis, and choice, and only an anger-inducing plot twist would have reminded readers of that. Hollis Brite isn't America Singer. No matter what people say, Coroa is not Illéa. This is not The Selection 2.0. Cass is trying to build something new here, trying to say something new. The book itself might be slow, or the characters un-relatable at certain points. Even the plot might be a bit harder to believe. But, truly, I think Cass is trying to do something valuable for herself and her readers, by breaking away from this "Selection" stigma. It might not always work, but if we look close enough, we can see and appreciate the effort of the journey.

It is here where we leave Lady Hollis Brite, who is determined to see this journey to the end. It's expected to continue sometime in May 2021, so stay tuned for my review!

*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*