Rarely has a book, series, or author driven me quite so crazy. The problem is the parts that are good are pretty good, but there are parts that are horrendous, and unfortunately, those are the parts that supposedly are the main backbone of the story. I only thought I hated the heroine from Andrea Cremer's Nightshade. I really do hate the heroine from Legacy/Allegiance, and she hardly deserves to even be called a heroine. Has there ever been such a weak, selfish, simpering, and altogether idiotic woman who was actually queen of anything? It's really rare for a character to be that unlikeable, especially when it's actually a first person narrative. I'm on page 248 of Allegiance, which means I've probably read about 700 pages in total from her point of view, and my dislike of her has only increased. How on earth is it possible for Cayla Kluver to hate her own gender to the point that she makes every female character either useless and stupid (Hytanicans) or evil murdering invaders (Cokyrians)? 
 Which brings me to the other thing in this book that made the Can't Stand factor just about limitless. Alera is a freaking queen. Narian is leading the invasion of her country. I don't care if her sister's life is at stake, and I don't care how many hormones she has in her body that keep her lusting after Narian. It's enough to start making me want to cuss her out with some pretty strong and derogatory language. I mean, for god's sake, what kind of message is Kluver trying to convey -- yes, I know, she wants to write a story about an eighteen year old queen in love with the enemy. But what the hell does it take for him to actually become the enemy, short of murdering her family in front of her? Alera points out that even if Narian "saves" her sister's life by, you know, invading her country and utterly destroying it, killing thousands and raping and pillaging and whatnot, what the hell kind of place does her sister have to come back to? A smoking hovel where she'll be raped, where the man she loved is probably dead, and, oh yeah, her country is GONE? 
 I'm sorry, I don't care how blue Narian's eyes are or just how much she lusts after this teenage boy. Even without all of the above, the romance is completely forced and just about as gag-worthy as the worst YA "predestined" romance you can imagine. I'm sorry, your country is at war and all you can do, as their queen, is dream about how the opposing general's eyes are oh-so-blue? Honestly, if I were in Hytanica, I would consider doing the whole country a favor and assassinating her. 
 After all, why exactly does Narian have to "save" her sister's life by leading the invasion against her country? Oh yeah, because he was the one who told the kidnappers how to get her. That isn't saving anyone's life, that's just a completely inept way to try to fill the massive, amazing, bottomless plot hole that comes with trying to make an excuse so that your predestined pair gets together. 
 Oh sorry, Obama, your two poor innocent children are going to get killed, OR the entire United States is going to be nuked. And no, there is no possibility that the nuking will fail, because, y'know, there's this prophecy and all that. 
 Okay. Anyway. Other than those two things, which happen to be about 95% of the very long and tediously-written story, the rest is pretty great. It completely baffles me how Kluver can manage to create compelling and heroic male characters, and yet make her own main character so insipid and immature. Eighteen is not freaking young, when a) you know from birth that you are supposed to be a queen, b) your country is being invaded (how many times do I need to point that out?), and c) this book is set in a medieval/fantasy kingdom where apparently eighteen year olds both get married and ascend to the throne. 
 In other words, Kluver either needs to fix her setting or fix her character, because either her setting is broken and eighteen year olds there really are as selfish and completely immature as Alera -- who presumably should be at least a little more mature than other 18 year old teenagers, being queen, married, and an older sister -- or Alera is just a broken character. I kept thinking all through Legacy that it's okay, this is a bildungsroman, Alera will grow into her role and end up likeable. 
 But honestly, there's a reason why historically, there have been young kings, conquerors, and rulers -- Alexander the Great and Elizabeth I just being a couple of the examples. That's because by that age, they were already intelligent, mature adults. Even in our world, Alera is old enough to go to college and, hopefully, to realize that "saving my sister's life!" is a completely selfish and dumb reason when compared to "saving my entire kingdom and countless thousands of people's lives!" 
 You add all that up and factor in the fact that from the reviews on Goodreads, I know many people ended up liking Steldor -- you know, Alera's actual husband -- more than her daydreaming crap about Narian, and I just feel like Kluver had so much wasted potential in this series/novel. I can imagine this same series, just done so much better, that it's even more frustrating than if it were all just terrible. 
 This is the line at which I really just about lost it. "To give Narian credit, sir, he could have killed me." 
 Oh yeah, because the reader can't possibly have a reason to hate Narian, so it's not ridiculous at all to have the guy who Narian just stabbed in the stomach talking about giving him credit while still bleeding out from his stomach. Yes, because stabbing someone in the stomach is so much better than just killing them outright. Just in the same way that since Alera Loves Narian Forever, we're going to conveniently ignore that whole he's-killed-how-many-innocent-people? question. And uh, just to clarify, most people who get stabbed in the stomach die in medieval settings, because, you know, there's the little problem of human anatomy with intestines and infection and uh, exactly how does this guy know that Narian hasn't killed him from the stomach wound? 
 But we loooooooove Narian, right? 
 -- 
 Edit: I finished the book. It didn't improve near the end. You already know how it works out, of course. Narian could probably kill her parents in front of her and the ending would still be about how they can finally get together, cuz the war's done! (Because your kingdom has been conquered, stupid.) Because, you know, it's entirely logical that her people don't mind her annulling her marriage to the king...the dude defending the kingdom...so she can be happily in love forever with the guy who publically stood next to the evil "Overlord" and watched as all her Elite Guards and soldiers, who have protected her from birth, are executed. 
 Alera, at one point, claims that "his loyalties are to me," while her kingdom is falling apart from the invasion he's leading and people are dying left and right. Sure, he won't kill you or your immediate family. But that's a little bit like saying a mass murderer is loyal to you. I understand, it's like Korean dramas -- love isn't love unless it's suicidal, stupid, selfish, bitchy, murderous, etc. The pattern in Korean dramas is generally that in order for the main couple's love to survive, someone also in love with one of the couple has to turn crazy or evil. 
 As bad as that is, I still haven't seen a Korean drama that justified sleeping with the guy who has just participated in killing and torturing your people. This idea of "you can't help who you love, even if it ends up hurting you" that Kluver returns to again and again, has got to have limits, for goodness' sake. Otherwise what you're left with is the idea that if this guy turns around and beats you up every day, hey, it's okay, I love him! 
 The most sickening part isn't that Alera turns a blind eye to all this and eagerly gets with him at the end again. It's that she so comprehensively shuts out absolutely every little doubt. She claims she's afraid of him, but by halfway into the book, you'll probably have noticed that she's afraid of pretty much everything. Other than that, on the strength of her True Love, she leapfrogs over every questionable thing about him. She doesn't stop to think about how those women who are missing husbands (her observation, at one point) actually ended up missing their husbands. She doesn't ever seem to question the paradox of Narian's alleged heroism in "saving" her kidnapped sister by leading the invasion of her country, although it's the information that he provided to her kidnappers that put her sister in danger in the first place. 
 I can buy into a story about sleeping with the enemy, but not one that's so patently unrealistic. I mean, that's a bit like, say, Laura Bush running to Osama Bin Laden right after 9/11 and completely ignoring that 9/11 happened or that he was a part of it. All right, Alera got around the adultery part because she's getting the marriage annulled, but otherwise the positions are similar. In actuality, since the book ends with her being the sole ruler, instead of just the queen, it's basically like the President running off with Osama Bin Ladin. I mean, YA fiction isn't big on the realism, but this is to some really disturbing levels. 
 It would've at least been interesting to see Alera struggle with this basic conflict of "loving the enemy," but that's exactly it--she never actually does. Once in a while, she'll make a comment about how she feels a little guilty, but at no point does she ever show it. Her entire character is passive, right down to the romance. She's in love with him, and that's that. End of character development. To be truthful, end of character. If you think Bella from Twilight is weak and one-dimensional, think again.