Review: Jennifer A. Nielsen The Ascendence Trilogy

I recently was reminded that this trilogy existed, and remembered enjoying it when it had originally published while I was in middle school. While rereading this trilogy I realized that there was a good chance that I had never actually finished reading the series when it first came out and may have only read books 1&2.

The False Prince held up to my nostalgia’s expectations for it. Being able to reread already knowing the ending and seeing the little hints at the big reveal was nice. A good adventure book for anyone really. Lovely setup for the main twist.

The Runaway King was okay, but suffered from the same issues many middle books suffer from. A bit darker than the first but that’s to be expected from the end of the first book. I wish we had more than two female characters that mattered/three names female characters. Still worth reading though.

The Shadow Throne disappointed me. While the stakes felt appropriately high, and the actions taken were reasonable enough for the fact that the king is like 15 years old. I wish that the trope of fridging wasn’t used, especially with the twist surrounding it at the end. The twists here felt more out of left field than before, and while the stakes seemed high there were little lasting consequences for Carthya after the war.

Overall, it’s an enjoyable series but if you were to decide to just stop after reading the first book, you wouldn’t be missing much.