Books: Julie Berry and Rae Carson

Last night I read The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry.  I think I may  have read it some years ago as well.  I was not impressed.  It seems so un-original.  It's a Cinderella tale.  Sure it has some characters and plot twists which don't exist in the original story, but still, it just seems so formulaic.  When I read a book like that, I think maybe I've just been reading YA fantasy too long, and I'm tired of  the genre.  But last weekend, I read The Girl of Fire and Thorns and The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson.  They were so much better than Julie Berry's book.  And now the final book of the trilogy, The Bitter Kingdom,  has arrived from inter-library loan.  The first two books had issues of history and religion lurking in the background.  I expect these issues will be brought to the fore in the final book.  Depending on how it is handled, that could make it the best book in the trilogy.