I love historical fiction in YA, and I was very excited to see a Queen of Someday dealt with Russian history (and based on Catherine the Great!). It didn't hurt the book had an intriguing cover and a wonderful blurb. Seriously, whoever wrote that blurb: kudos to you. To some extent, the prose in the blurb may have been more compelling than the prose of the narrative. 
 The story moved along at a nice pace and was entertaining enough, but I'm not sure how much will actually stay with me. Some of this may be do to the fact the novel told instead of showing. This lead to characters such as Sophie's mother appearing almost as caricatures, made only starker by the familiar tropes employed (poor girl needs to marry rich to save her family). Now, this is history, albeit history I am unfamiliar with which was part of my excitement, so some of these tropes might simply be historical fact. Ficklin's job is to make me feel like I've never encountered these circumstances. I should be rooting for Sophie against it all, which begs the question. 
 Why am I rooting for Sophia? Characters enact their parts valiantly enough, but they feel like one-dimensional actors. I get no sense there is anything going on behind their actions. They do what the author tells them to, but what is their motivation? They aren't so much characters as paper dolls. Much of this can be blamed on the lack of nuance in the novel. Sophie is not an unlikable character by any means. I like her. I want to root for her, badly. And I'm not rooting against her. I just didn't feel the stakes. 
 I'm not going to touch the romance too much. Needless to say, I need to care about people to have a reason to root for them romantically. Also, the rich, engaging historical and political possibilities of this novel are ignored as mere set dressing for the romantic possibilities. Yes, these courts were full of romance and intrigue that's part of their fun. This doesn't quite make the jump. 
 As mentioned, the world feels small due to limited world building. At one point Sophie is told that her heart is Russian, but I don't know what that means in this world. How is this court different, or all too similar, of the courts of Europe at the time. What timeframe are we even in? Ficklin does I get a great sense of walking around a castle with a lot of staircases, but no real sense of the dynamic Russian culture here. 
 I want to get caught up in the hype. I want to root for Sophie as she tries to save her family and make herself loved by a kingdom, but I never feel truly a part of the events taking place. This book lacks finesse and depth, even the as a quick pleasure read. Even so, it does start to come into it's own during the last third- fourth of the book. I may be curious to see how the series progresses. If you're at all interested in the subject matter, there are much worse ways to spend an afternoon.