This week we are discussion The Evil Queen by Gena Showalter, Ch. 33 - End.
Content Warning!!! This book contains situations and subjects related to: blood, death, forced marriage, loss of a loved one, and violence.
Spoiler Warning!!! This post is full of spoilers for The Evil Queen by Gena Showalter.
Discussion:
Michaela: Hello friends and welcome to our final discussion of The Evil Queen by Gena Showalter. This book was my summer read book exchange pick and I do not regret it! It’s definitely not a perfect book but it’s a fun adventure with an intriguing approach to a retelling. I really enjoyed this book the first time I read it. This time reading it, I still enjoyed it, but I really wish it had gone a little deeper and farther with the story. As I’m getting older my reading interests and preferences are changing and reading YA is not something that comes easily to me anymore. Something about the writing styles of YA and also the characters choices or priorities just doesn’t flow with what I like to read anymore. This book, even though I enjoy it a lot, did have a lot of those moments, but then became less and less and the book goes on.
This last third of the book is packed with so many things. We start off with Farrah’s capture of Everly and then her punishment or torture of her. I really like that the main representation of Snow White in this story shows her Evil Queen side so much. The aspect of this book that I love so much is that the fairytale retelling isn’t as straightforward as some others, you get to see different interpretations or representations of each character. Queen Violet is the evil queen to Everly’s Snow White, Everly is the evil queen to Farrah, Farrah is the evil queen to Everly. I love stuff like that so much.
Jacilyn: When we first started reading, my guess was that Hartly was going to be Snow White. I always knew that Everly would be Evil Queen because…. She’s the protagonist and it’s the title of the book, but I do like that there is so much interpretation to be done with the prophesies or fairytales. It was frustrating to me to read the parts where Everly was mad at Roth or Farrah or Truly for making the same decision she would have, like caring for siblings in spite of their flaws. I’m sure that if Farrah were the protagonist, I’d feel the same way, although from our perspective as readers it didn’t seem like she was quite as hypocritical in those regards.
What might have actually frustrated me the most is the kinds of things Everly held against Roth, when he did everything he possibly could to keep her happy and healthy. She is angry at him for locking her in the tower, but once he arrived she had every comfort she could possibly want. He got over his fear of her pretty quickly, and really never stopped showing her that he cared. This is one of those books where I think the falling in love happened incredibly quickly, but that’s kind of a thing in YA books in general. Like Michaela said, as I get older YA just doesn’t hit exactly the same because I just don’t relate to the feelings and motivations as much.
Michaela: Everly is definitely a very flawed main character, and she does admit a few times that she is doing that, but I think it’s an honest reaction. When you’re stressed, frustrated, scared, angry, or whatever you don’t think rationally. I think that Evil Queen side of her is always there and always angry so she struggles with caring about those rational thoughts. Which is fair, I also would not think rationally. It’s a joke in our friend group that I could easily be a villain, and it’s 100% true. I can fully see Everly’s path, I don’t agree with it but I understand her spiral.
I think she blames Roth for all these things that Farrah did simply because he goes along with those choices. He doesn’t free Everly but he takes care of her. He can’t let go of either woman but that doesn’t work when they’re working against each other. Her feelings are valid but irrational, however I think Roth’s feelings and actions don’t align with each other and his feelings are also valid but still irrational. I really enjoy how flawed all the characters are, there is no hero in this story in my opinion and I love that.
I feel like the main difference between Farrah and Everly is that Farrah tried to push down her evil side her whole life not to help people but to make sure she didn’t become the Evil Queen. And I think that makes her a perfect candidate to be the Evil Queen, she literally says exactly what Everly does which is “I want her to hurt so I can heal”, which is absolute insanity. They’re two sides of the same coin. Roth can’t choose between them because they’re both making the same mistakes, but also his choices haven’t always been straight up either.
Speaking of Farrah, her throwing this ball to find Roth a wife was so wildly thrown into the story to me. It felt like the author needed a way for Everly to dramatically escape and then went ‘we’ll just make a ball happen’. Like it didn’t feel like it made much sense, Farrah thinking he needed a wife’s help happened so fast after he became king. It’s been 5 seconds, just give him a moment to get used to his responsibility, like damn.
Jacilyn: Farrah and Everly are definitely different sides to the same coin. It makes me wonder why Allura chose Everly specifically. Farrah also had the same experiences with evil and goodness, and honestly I’m not sure if I can even say that one was worse than the other (although… the whipping was really cruel). No one is entirely good or evil, so I really do appreciate when authors write characters that are dynamic in that way. I want characters that make mistakes! It makes books so much more interesting.
Speaking of Allura, I would actually read a book that was about her. She was the most interesting character to me with her connection to the forest and the fact that she was kind of her own creature in herself. Not a witch, not a sorceress, not an oracle. But she really has such immense power! I wasn’t really sure what to expect with her character and role, but I suppose it makes sense with how she was always around Everly, sometimes helping directly or just watching.
The ball and wife thing did seem really random. Roth “agreed” to it so quickly, too. Farrah didn’t even really try very hard to convince him, it just kind of happened all of a sudden. It also sounded like they were going to be inviting potential brides from a lot of places, when it’s first brought up, but then it’s just the princess from the water kingdom. What happened to the rest of the potential lovely ladies? What the hell is the point of a ball when there’s only one suitor!? I’m so confused about it.
It was pretty cool to see almost all of the characters finally converge together in the forest. At one point I really did think that Everly should be able to trust Nicholas, and over time I wavered a bit, but somehow the betrayal actually kind of surprised me. Especially considering that he was willing to sacrifice Hartly to get what he wanted. It must have been heartbreaking for Saxon and Vikander to have to attack their own people and be the cause of so many senseless deaths. I’m sad that Hartly and Warick didn’t get more time together. Violet, however, can fuck off. There’s nothing she can do to make up for the way she treated Everly in my opinion. I was proud of Everly for saying that she would forgive her, but that didn’t mean that their relationship would change. That ship sailed when Violet tried to murder her.
You know who I don’t really care about at all? Ty. He was barely there. And then when Everly included him in her list of loved ones in that last chapter I was like wait, why? You’ve interacted with him only a handful of times!
We also never really got an explanation for Vikander’s mysterious mannerisms. As we got closer to the end, he seemed less and less like he was working against Everly in the name of Roth and Farrah and more like he was watching and maybe even helping to encourage certain decisions. I was really hoping to find out what his motivations are, what role he was playing throughout the story.
Michaela: We need an Allura prequel right now! She’s such an interesting concept, along with her forest with all the portals to different realms. Such a cool idea.
I think my main difference between Everly and Farrah is that Farrah was willing to use other people against their will as weapons. That crosses so far past the line for me. Everly did any bad things herself, she syphoned power but didn’t use it to force someone to hurt a loved one. I really like Farrah’s glass coffin ending where she has to watch all of her choices until she learns from them, I think it’s very fitting.
Fully agree on the Queen Violet front, that woman deserves nothing. Not even just for how she treated Everly but she was clearly at least emotionally abusive to Truly as well. That woman has no right to either twin. Also fully agree about Ty! The only point of his character was to get with Noel at the end and that was only kind of mentioned, which was a funny moment for sure but could have been so much more.
Literally why was Vikander so smug and satisfied with Everly’s actions all the time?! I’ve read it twice and I still don’t get what all those moments mean. Maybe it’s meant to come out in a later book? The sequel follows Saxon and The Glass Queen, so maybe Vikander is a “prince” in another fairytale where all his mannerisms would make sense.
Something I did like a lot with this story is Everly and Roth’s romance, for the ‘i shouldn’t want you but I need you’ trope. Love it, always gets me! I appreciated the writing for their first night spent together. I thought it was a little steamy, a little awkward, and just enough action to be appropriate for a YA novel.
There are so many bits of this story that I find so cool and interesting. Like the truth game, Everly’s bond with all the ‘creepy or ugly’ creatures and their aid in her escape, Allura’s powers and her forest, Noel and Ophelia, the fairytale prophecies, the interpretations of good vs evil. Just so many things I love, I really want to find something similar in adult fiction that allows for more meat on the bones of this kind of story. YA is awesome but it only allows so much before it’s no longer considered to be YA by the system and I think that hinders stories sometimes. I loved the ending with Roth eating the apple and Farrah’s coffin, I loved Everly accepting Allura’s powers which builds to a coming battle or major event in the series, and I freaking adore Hartly turning into a Tree of New Beginnings and Everly getting to see her and Aubrey’s spirits again. I bawled the first time I read that part of this book and this time I was still misty. Such beautiful imagery.
Jacilyn: I really liked the decision that Everly ultimately made for Farrah’s punishment. I was actually surprised when she made it so she could get out once she learned from her actions. I wonder if that means that at some point, she will get out and join the story again and maybe live out her days with Truly?
The Tree of New Beginnings was absolutely beautiful. The imagery of the tree growing from Hartly’s body, and her and Aubrey’s return as spirits, was lovely. Everly deserves to have these people that love her around still. She has Roth and Truly, but it’s not the same as the two women she grew up with.
Well, friends, that is it for our final discussion of The Evil Queen. Thank you for reading, and meet us back here next week for the announcement of our next Summer Book Exchange pick!
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