SPOIL FREE SUMMARY
Forgive me. Most of this review has spoilers.
Aerin is a princess who wants to prove she is worthy of her father and her title so she starts dragon slaying. Only it snowballs into more than she expected.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Aerin is the only child of the King of Damar. She is bold and reckless. She is used to being mistreated and whispered about because of her parentage (her mother was called a witch). Even so, she doesn't spend the entire book complaining about how she is a victim. So she comes off as likable in most of the story.
Tor is Aerin's only friend. They grew up together. It's obvious that he has a crush on her, and Aerin supposedly notices their relationship changing. I say supposedly because she mentions it and then promptly ignores him. His role is to teach Aerin swordmanship and inform her about the Hero's Crown. After that, he is kind of useless.
Galanna is Aerin's snobby cousin. She is not just selfish and greedy, but evil, as she almost gets Aerin killed.
Luthe is a inhuman being who becomes Aerin's teacher.
Perlith is a man who has always hated Aerin and is nasty to her all of the time. He is rather two dimensional.
PACING
The pacing is slower, but the first portion of the story is Aerin's childhood so the reader becomes familiar with her personality and her motivations (trying to earn her father's respect and affection). I actually thought this was the best part of the story, because I felt it was the only portion where we learned about a character (Aerin).
ANIMALS IN THE STORY
For the most part, animals are used well. Aerin nurses back an old war horse of her fathers while healing from her own injury. He is her only constant companion, although this is never seen as a detriment (as she seems to have no close relationships with anyone, even Tor).
And yet more than halfway through the books, a herd of wild animals follow her for no apparent reason. Aerin even admits it makes no sense. And when they do serve a purpose, it seems kind of just thrown in there, without any explanation for why: they return to her a lost item.
FLAWS IN STORYTELLING
There is one scene in the book that stands out. Perlith uses magic and Aerin freaks out. I had no idea why. Until it's finally explained that Aerin reacts badly to it and always has. If this was mentioned previously and it was so brief as to miss it, my apologies. But to my knowledge, there was no mention.
So where I should have been shocked and angry at Perlith I was just left confused. The whole scene was obviously supposed to evoke sympathy for Aerin. But how could it? It explained her horror in a paragraph before even explaining why.
It was all jumbled up and felt like an odd mistake for an author to make.
THE LOVE OF A FATHER-SPOILERS
It's a major theme that Aerin wants to prove she is worthy to be a daughter of a king. Mainly this is because of her parentage and how her mother was called a witch who seduced her father. It is the main drive of her childhood, as she lets herself be goaded by Galanna because of it.
But later on it seems to fade away, not because she has learned she has earned it, or that she doesn't need to, she just kind of forgets. After slaying a dragon, her father finds out and is kind of pleased. But her emotions regarding his approval are basically non-existant. And I started wondering what her motivation was.
You could say it was protecting her people but this isn't really emphasized. Near the end, her father unceremoniously dies in Aerin's presence. And it just didn't seem like it mattered that much.
POV CHANGES-SPOILERS
There are many moments where we suddenly jump inside another characters head, which I believe happened in the other McKinley book I read. I kind of felt like it was cheating, a poor substitute for the reader having to get to know a characters and see a relationship develop. Instead of seeing Luthe develop feelings for Aerin, we get told his thoughts in one scene. It doesn't make up for anything though, and feels unearned.
LOVE STORY-SPOILERS
Through the first part of the story, Tor is obviously in love with Aerin, but for some reason she is rather dense. She spends most of her time trying to prove herself worthy of her father by perfecting a secret item. She never really confides in him, which feels rather selfish on her part. As Tor goes out of his way to teach her sword fighting, when no one else would.
Anyway, eventually she runs off and meets a strange man who helps heal her, preventing her from dying. She spends 6 months with him, which is basically summarized in a page or so. They don't get on rather well, and yet its obvious that Luthe is supposed to find her attractive right off the bat.
He mentions that her mother told him to watch after her (so he is quite old). He knows all about her, which is kind of creepy, but Aerin doesnt' seem to think so. She doesn't really think at all, actually.
He is instantly jealous of Tor (which is weird, because he has watched her grow up, wouldn't he think of her as a child?) How long has he been thinking of her sexually? You could say he only started to after he healed her and made her inhuman like him, but this isn't really clear.
The whole relationship felt rushed to me. I think it would have have worked better if Luthe had simply been a mentor character to Aerin, especially since she never got the love from her father that clearly motivated her so much.
THAT SECRET RELATIVE-SPOILERS
Luthe sends Aerin to kill her relative who is causing trouble on the country's borders. The king and his men were too dumb to figure this out or something.
He gives her a long speech about how much alike they are, because we haven't seen that a dozen times.
She struggles but kills him rather fast. I didn't feel like she developed in anyway. She just needed to show she could defeat a man who had a magical Crown and not just huge dragons. And she didn't even have her magic potion this time.
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE CLIMAXES
I was kind of confused as to what event was most important. I don't feel that any event seamlessly led to the next. Aerin defeats a relative who is causing trouble (because her father and his army are incapable of doing anything right).
Then goes to battle and helps end it. And then returns home and has to get ride of the dead dragon's head, because everyone else is too dumb to realize it's poison.
I am not going to lie. Before the battle was even over, I was bored. By the time they returned to the castle, I was begging it to be over with. It dragged on far too long and having Aerin have to do everything herself was growing rather tiresome. An ally with a brain would have been a welcome addition.
BUMBLING TOR-SPOILERS
Near the last portion of the book when Aerin is reunited with Tor, she basically does everything. She has to tell Tor to even put on the crown! She has to come up with an idea to move the dragon's head.
Tor just comes off as incompetent at best and stupid at worse. He certainly doesn't deserve to be king. It's quite obvious that Aerin has done everything and the men (from Tor to the King) are incapable of doing anything without her.
As if to make up for his treatment, in the epilogue, McKinley makes sure to point out that everyone loved him and he was a great king. Even though he showed no such competence for the job during the book.
THE FALL OF AERIN-SPOILERS
I am going to get subjective here. This is completely my own view on morality.
I liked Aerin for most of the book. But things slowly changed when she met Luthe.
The romance between Aerin and him feels awkward and forced, while making Aerin look immoral and selfish. She has relations with Luthe knowing she will go back, marry Tor and have his children. And she has no remorse.
Luckily Tor never asks about Luthe, because who wants to be told they were cheated on? Best to pretend if never happened. What a nice guy.
And Aerin is so nice that she doesn't tell him, because she doesn't want to hurt him. Even though as far as she is concerned she did nothing wrong. Strange how that works.
Hilariously enough, Aerin says she loves Tor. And we are expected to believe her. She even spins a yarn about how she was afraid and sleeping with Luthe made her not afraid. Or something.
AERIN SUFFERS...ALOT
I can't really call Aerin a Mary Sue, in the fact that she is imperfect. But her imperfections don't ever really cause her any damage other than physical injuries. Yes, she gets sick from the plant she eats, but her father doesn't treat her any differently. She doesn't get blocked off from anyone (not that she had any relationships).
Yes, she suffers great pain after defeating a dragon. But that's kind of it. She does amazing things that no one else can do then suffers great physical pain for ten pages. Gets healed. Goes off and repeats the process. I just never felt like she learned anything.
EPILOGUE-SPOILERS
There is mention that Perlith died but his men respected him and how Galanna is less nasty but still doesn't like Aerin. So character development. I guess. Most of this felt like the author realized mistakes had been made so he better fix them.
Such as: Aerin loved Tor, even though she is waiting for him and her children to die so she can go back to Luthe.
Tor was a great King, even though nothing in the story actually points to him being worthy of the title. In fact, Aerin makes him look like an idiot.
Nothing helps I am afraid.
CONCLUSION
The story is interesting enough at first. I loved watching Aerin heal Tor as well as learn about her past and her desire to please her father. But I am never quite sure of Aerin's motivations as the story progresses and her father no longer feels important. It's like the author forget about what motivated her in the first place.
The relationship between Luthe and Aerin feels awkward and made me lose any sympathy I had for Aerin. Since this is subjective, many readers could still find her likable.
The climaxes were too long and too many. Instead of naturally connecting events, they feel disjointed. Just more ways to show us how amazing Aerin is which only serves to make her less likable and more Mary Sue-ish.
A major fault was no real allies or friends for Aerin other than Luthe and her horse. Everyone is is stupid (Tor), distant (her father) or evil (Perlith and Galanna).
I give “The Hero and the Crown” one and a half stars.
