This is one of those books that everyone says is super good, it was on sale in ebook* so I got it. I admit I wasn't madly in love from the getgo, but by the end of it I had a warm feeling in my heart and was thinking, "Maia is just so...so sweet. And kind. So kind."
- note: this kind of causes difficulties if you want to refer to the giant goddamned list of fancy names in the book, though.
Anyway: Maia is from a world where elves and goblins exist and as far as I can tell are about the same thing biologically except elves are white and pale and goblins are dark skinned and haired and any intermingling of the two comes out gray (hello, Fantastic Racism). Maia is the fourth son of the current elvin emperor, who was married five times, got forced into marrying Maia's goblin mother for political reasons and hated her guts from day one and hated her even more for getting pregnant the one and only time he was obligated to bang her. He banished her and Maia immediately and ignored them forever, though it sounds like Maia was raised right by his mom until she died when he was eight. Then he was exiled with an exiled courtier cousin named Setheris, who abused him and treated him like shit. He literally only saw his father once ever, heard himself be called a "damned whelp," and that was IT. Never met any other family, nothing. Buttmonkey. (I recommend reading the TV Tropes page on this.)
When the book starts, Maia finds out that his father and the three older brothers have all been blown up in an airship and it was no accident. Now he's the emperor, thrust into a world he has no knowledge of or much training in, among people who probably won't approve of him. However, he ends up with an excellent, politically savvy secretary named Csevet that really helps save his bacon, and he gets some bodyguards, and it turns out that his nephew is also a nice kid, and he does manage to associate with some friendly folks, even if an emperor can't really have "friends" as one normally thinks of them. But there's enough people out there that want to betray him that he needs to watch out about--enough to have a private investigator (of sorts) REALLY look into what happened with that airship.
Overall, what stands out to me in this book is how kind Maia is. He apologizes when he's done wrong or been snappish even if people tell him that as a emperor he shouldn't. He cares about the servants. When his smart sister, who he's never met before, says she doesn't want to get married and wants to study the stars, he breaks off all marriage negotiations to make sure that she can. He asks you want you want and tries to figure out how to help you get it. He's sweet and caring. He's great with his little nieces and nephew. And eventually after getting to know her, he starts to hit it off with his duly appointed fiancee, who sounds like she's badass awesome. He may be tempted to strike back at his former guardian, and kinda wants to, but restrains himself. He is kind, kind, kind, and that is what is endearing about him and this book, and how those closest to him become that fond of him as well. I won't get into spoilers, but once you weed out his enemies, people just become more and more fond of him for him being himself, and it's adorable. That's why everyone loves this book.
On the bad side, I concur that the elaborate names are a bit much, I pretty much had to figure out a lot of the fancy words from context, and for all the definitions of people or names or whatever at the start (note: I guess in print this guide is at the end rather than the start), I didn't feel very enlightened as to what that all meant. I had a slow start really getting into this book because it's so much to wade through.
But otherwise, four and a half stars from me, it's very good and sweet to read.
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