Stefanie's Thoughts: Take the Key and Lock Her Up by Ally Carter

The princess is dead. Long live the princess.

Centuries ago, the royal family of Adria was killed…or so everyone thought.

Now Grace Blakely knows the truth: There was one survivor, and that survivor’s blood runs through her veins. This simple fact could cause a revolution—which is why some people will stop at nothing to keep it from coming to light.

There is only one way for Grace to save herself, save her family, and save the boy she loves. She must outmaneuver her foes, cut through the web of lies that has surrounded her for years, and go back to the source of all her troubles, despite the risk.

If she wins, she will inherit a throne.

And if she loses, she will inherit the fate of all the dead princesses who came before her.

Hi everyone,

Sorry for my absence lately. I moved recently and my apartment now looks like a disaster zone. I’ve been spending all my free time making it slightly livable (mostly so I don’t kill myself trying to walk down a hallway). I’ve very accident prone, so when I first moved in I for sure thought I’d hurt myself. Instead all I’ve done so far is burn my arm on the oven door and I did indeed trip over some of the boxes (of books nonetheless).

I did get to finishing Take the Key and Lock her Up by Ally Carter (it's been the only book I've finished since I moved). All I can say is, it was the biggest disappointment of 2017. I love Ally Carter, she is one of the five auto-buy authors I have (the others being Meg Cabot, Maria V. Synder, Tera Lynn Childs and Beth Kendrick) and I always know I’ll get at least a trilogy from her. That means a solid three year commitment of awesome action packed novels!

Embassy Row series, not so much.

Take the Key and Lock her Up was more of an OK. The first book wasn’t as good as her previous novels but I was still interested throughout. Book two I remember nothing about it and after reading this one, well I don’t know what really happened and I’m saddened to say I honestly don’t even care that I have no idea what happened.

To me this entire book felt like Grace (Our protagonist) was just complaining and whining about her life. It was full of choppy short sentences that drove me crazy. I’m not sure if they were that short to create tension or rising action, but it just annoyed me. I won’t quote any of the sentences, but some of the sentences were just so dumb; one of my biggest pet peeves was the use of some of the silliest adjectives I have ever read.

The adults read like they were carbon copies of one another; maybe I’m just saying that because I felt so old reading this book, but it felt like all the adults were the same person just given different names.
Plus the teen angst, holy cheese, was this filled with teen angst. It felt like I was back in high school, but worse. If the characters were going off in their private planes and saving the day, they were complaining. I think that actually might have been Grace’s secret weapon, not the whole secret society/royal family plot they had going on. I didn't even feel there was much action/adventure going on either.

After these three books I just realized, nobody could catch one teenager?…… I mean I get that’s the whole point to the story but really, not one adult caught her or when they had the chance, nobody did anything. Brings me back to the incompetent/carbon copy adults thing from my previous paragraph.

I never thought I would say this about an Ally Carter series, but I’m so glad this one is over. This doesn’t hold anything to Heist Society or Gallagher Girls.

A sad little star for this one and an extra one because I finished it, for a complete two stars out of five.  I'm hoping during the next week I can get everything unpacked and finished so I can get back to reading, I've missed it.


Happy reading,


Stefanie