Cindaren reviewed Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco (Kingdom of the Wicked, #1)
Review of 'Kingdom of the Wicked' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Overall I enjoyed this book and am currently reading book #2. I had a few minor issues but for the most part I've been able to ignore them. I only checked out these library books due to some fantastic fanart I kept seeing and I am glad I finally did. Issues below, in order of annoyance, excluding all of the unnecessary commas to which I have resigned myself because I'm no comma expert either.
1) The first person narrative in this book made me severely uncomfortable. I'm not entirely sure why. Normally I would rather read than literally almost anything else but with this book I realized I kept finding excuses to put it down. Still enjoyed the story itself but goodness was it difficult to get through.
2) When one character is able to read, hear, or otherwise sense the main character's emotions/thoughts it always makes me cringe. To …
Overall I enjoyed this book and am currently reading book #2. I had a few minor issues but for the most part I've been able to ignore them. I only checked out these library books due to some fantastic fanart I kept seeing and I am glad I finally did. Issues below, in order of annoyance, excluding all of the unnecessary commas to which I have resigned myself because I'm no comma expert either.
1) The first person narrative in this book made me severely uncomfortable. I'm not entirely sure why. Normally I would rather read than literally almost anything else but with this book I realized I kept finding excuses to put it down. Still enjoyed the story itself but goodness was it difficult to get through.
2) When one character is able to read, hear, or otherwise sense the main character's emotions/thoughts it always makes me cringe. To completely remove the free will to have a thought or emotion and to choose whether or not to act on it, or even to let anyone else know about it, just makes my soul wince. Then again, Rhysand taught Feyre how to put up shields so maybe this protagonist will learn something similar.
3) The protagonist often gets rage-y for seemingly no reason. Several times she would start raging and I would skip back a few pages to see what I missed that triggered the rage and most of the time I was never able to identify it. I get that this is probably supposed to represent some sort of connection with another character but it's not worked in as organically as one might hope.
That said, I will most likely end up buying these books although my favorite character is that aforementioned another character and not the protagonist, if only because I don't always understand her motives. Given the first person narrative, if she can be in excruciating pain and still manage to describe the room she's walking into she should be able to convey her motives and intent more clearly.
