35 girls enter, four are left, and only one can wear the crown.

Of course, we already know who that one is but the journey America takes as she inadvertedly starts a revolution prompts . . . conflicting feelings.

Since King Clarkson threatened America in the previous book, she’s been on her best behavior and fully committed to Prince Maxon after her annoying indecisiveness.

But King Clarkson is trying his best to slip her up, throwing challenges that will test her moral compass and surpress the growing rebel movements that grow stronger every day.

It is with these two intense plot-threads that lead to two conclusion: America and Maxon make a cute couple, but America would make an awful queen.

Cass can write an intriguing, pull-you-in romance, but she is not so good at world building or revolutions.

Spoilers below

I had been most annoyed by America’s flip flopping in her love triangle so I wasn’t looking forward to that as I dove into this. However, Cass came through and nipped it pretty quickly with America realizing that she has changed too much and has only been returning to Aspen as a safety net in case Maxon rejects her. It’s really selfish and her sister calls her out on this.

So with the love triangle out of the way, America’s biggest issue where Maxon is concerned is saying the words “I love you,” and confessing her duplicitious liasons with Aspen.

The former part takes up a new space in how annoying America and Maxon can be in their unwillingness to communciate those three little words. America keeps repeating that she needs to hear it from him in order to feel secure about her place in Maxon’s heart before really giving into the idea of being queen or giving up Maxon. So even though she knows she loves him, she’s still won’t say it first even though she knows he’s waiting for a signal from her.

UGHHHH! What happened to actions speaking louder than words? I think everything Maxon has done has made it very clear that America is his choice. It’s practically favoritism as all the other girls admit that they see her as his first choice with Kriss as a close second, and the fact, she gets away with almost everything when it comes to disregarding the monarchy’s tests.

Which brings me to why America wouldn’t make a good queen. While I applaud America for sticking to her morals, and wanting to change the caste system in a big way by teaming up with the Northern rebels, she is unable to do subtle diplomacy. Or any diplomacy as she stops listening to her history lessons, procrastinates on diplomacy assignments, and makes big impact statements without any idea of how to clean it up. Maxon actually says America is “full of good intentions and bad ideas.”

Yep, that pretty much sums her up and Maxon will have to mitigate the fall-out every time America does something because she has to follow her feelings. It’s not like Maxon doesn’t want to make big sweeping changes but he had been planning it on a smaller scale so there wouldn’t be full fledged revolution or rebellion when he put forth unpopular ideas. Basically, he’s doing the policy work that’s needed.

I liked the idea that was brought up in The Elite that America was going to use her platform to enact change, play the long-game while Aspen was focused on short-sighted revenge. This book shows America is incapable of actually doing the long-game or anything of the sort.

It’s just so frustrating.
The world building is vague. You can tell that Cass wanted to up the stakes with the Northern vs Southern rebel, Italian-Northern alliance, and power-plays. But her real interest lies in the romance which was the only part that really tugged at my emotions. The attempted rebellion and coup was an excuse to kill off people without exploring any angst or aftermath of the deaths. Literally, the epilogue skims over the caste system abolishment to get to the wedding.

And the reveal that Kriss was also a Northern rebel planted for the throne just went no where!!!

There had been a few good parts like the remaining four girls bonding and the maids having a few heart to hearts, they aren’t enough to excuse the shoddy world building and the too neatly tied ending. I’m not even going to touch how Aspen moved on from America in the final five chapters. That came out of no where.

While the book does bring all the feels when you’re in the middle of it, looking back at it with a critical lens, it falls flat. So I’ll round it to 3. 3 stars.

I liked it in the moment, but can’t recommend it as a worthy finale to the trilogy.