Princess Kelsea has inherited a kingdom in shambles: held hostage to the insane and bloodthirsty Red Queen of a neighboring kingdom, the Tearling must pay tribute to the Red Queen in the form of slaves. Far from the utopian society intended by its founder, William Tear, the Tearling has devolved. Kelsea is determined to save her people, but the leaders of the country have grown rich on the current state of affairs, and see no reason to change them. 
 Blurbs compare The Queen of the Tearling to A Song of Ice and Fire, and I can see some definite parallels. If Daenerys were the only main character, decided to go straight to Westeros, and found the same problems in Westeros that she found in Slaver's Bay, the stories would be eerily similar. As it is, Kelsea is a more likable, and possibly a more fully-fleshed, character than Daenerys; she recognizes her own weaknesses and strives to correct them, she genuinely wants the best for her people, she's willing to listen to the advice of those with whom she fundamentally disagrees just to be sure she's got all sides of the story. I thoroughly enjoyed her journey and her discoveries about herself, her mother, her country, and the magic token at her disposal. 
 The core story and characterization are not why I gave this book 2 stars rather than 3. The real problem I had with The Queen of the Tearling is in the history of the Tearling. Apparently, a couple of hundred years before the events of the story, colonists from America and England came to this new continent and settled it. William Tear had a whole plan for the place that has clearly fallen through; there are no printing presses in the country, for example, and the church has far more power than he ever intended. The trouble is that the juxtaposition of the setting--a fairly traditional medieval fantasy setting, complete with magic--clashes horribly with the idea that the place was settled now or very close to now. Late in the story, we learn that heroin production is making a comeback, and that a certain armor-wearing warrior is hooked on an opiate. Perhaps most troubling is the existence of Kelsea's library, which includes the complete Rowling as well as The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. My issue with that is that there is no explanation as to why, in a world that clearly contains magic, books like these would still exist--and if magic is a newer discovery and only exists in the New World, that is never made clear, or at least not clear enough. The history of the Tearling isn't "alternate" enough to work with a medieval fantasy, and every mention of it breaks the suspension of disbelief. 
 The truly frustrating issue with the history is that, at least at this point, it wasn't even necessary. There is nothing about the Tearling that requires the founder to have been American or English. The entire story would have stood up completely well without any mention of the history of the place--at least beyond the Red Queen's invasion. Even the idea that superior technology existed and was lost isn't necessary. Without the colonization history, the story is still complete, fully-formed, and self-contained, and would have been a much more enjoyable read without it. If in future volumes the history does become important, this one will still be frustrating because that importance was not made clear from the outset, which I feel it truly needed to be in order to make this a truly enjoyable work.