A review by pagesofpins
The Beggar Queen by Lloyd Alexander

2.0

Not as strong as the first two in the series. A lot of borrowing from Les Mis, some new characters introduced only to be promptly killed, too many paragraph-long metaphors loosely related to anything (stop talking about Skeit's nose already), things dragging on then wrapping up absurdly quickly. The beginning of the book was promising, with the siege of the palace and the plot against Constantine's life, but quickly grew too convoluted. And what were we supposed to learn from Connie, anyway? Kill your uncle and you can stop sleeping in a little racecar bed? At least Mickle and Theo have some screen time together, and everything ends well, if predictably and with a bit too simplistic a resolution.