Book Review: The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

The world is at peace, said the Utterances. And really, if the odd princess has a hard day, is that too much to ask?

Greta is a duchess and crown princess—and a hostage to peace. This is how the game is played: if you want to rule, you must give one of your children as a hostage. Go to war and your hostage dies.

Greta will be free if she can survive until her eighteenth birthday. Until then she lives in the Precepture school with the daughters and sons of the world’s leaders. Like them, she is taught to obey the machines that control their lives. Like them, she is prepared to die with dignity, if she must. But everything changes when a new hostage arrives. Elián is a boy who refuses to play by the rules, a boy who defies everything Greta has ever been taught. And he opens Greta’s eyes to the brutality of the system they live under—and to her own power.

As Greta and Elián watch their nations tip closer to war, Greta becomes a target in a new kind of game. A game that will end up killing them both—unless she can find a way to break all the rules.

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I'm not sure how to write a review for this book. There were just so many different things that I didn't like about this book that they mushed together. I will say that the book ended way differently than I thought it would, and I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing. 

The writing bugged me through out this whole book. It seemed like Bow was saying so much, but none of it mattered. The writing jumped around leaving me confused, and bored in the end. I eventually stopped trying/caring, and because of this, I wanted to put down the book a couple of times. 

The characters were really boring. I found them making stupid mistakes, saying the weirdest things, and acting like robots. Even the robots acted more human than the humans. I didn't care what happened to the characters, even if I was suppose to. This made the story even more boring to me. 

I had mixed feelings about the romance in this book. I liked the idea of Da-Xia and Greta being together, but then Eilan got involved and it went downhill from there. There was already so much going on in the book that I did not want to read about the romance!

Overall, the writing, characters, and the story line left me confused and bored. I will not be picking up the next book.

1.5/5 Points

I did not like this book