Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Kingdom of the Wicked

3⭐️

Empezaré diciendo que este libro no me ha parecido malo, pero es de estos que tienen tanto potencial que la autora lo ha malgastado de una manera increíble.

Creo que lo mejor sería empezar por lo que más me ha gustado, y es que me parece que Kerri Maniscalco tiene una pluma buenísima que ha hecho que me haya leído el libro súper rápido sin ni siquiera darme cuenta de las horas que pasaban. Cuando leí la sinopsis lo quise agregar a mis lecturas porque me pareció una idea estupenda: ¿quién no quiere leer sobre brujas y demonios? Emilia, la protagonista, me ha gustado bastante por lo fuerte y segura que es, al igual que Wrath (que encima tiene tatuajes, qué más se puede pedir). Que esté ambientado en Italia también es un punto a favor del libro, nunca había leído un libro situado allí y me ha encantado.

Como siempre, ahora vengo a hablar de cosas que me han tocado la moral bastante: para empezar, no sé a quién se le ocurrió catalogar este libro como enemies to lovers cuando simplemente se odian porque Emilia es bruja y Wrath un demonio: no hay más razones a porqué son esos supuestos “enemigos” así que, para mí, esto sería más bien un haters to algo porque es que no hay romance casi. Odio cuando no evolucionan como “pareja”, básicamente han ido de odiarse a querer arrancarse la ropa en dos páginas: ¿perdón? No, así no vamos; antes he dicho que la pluma de Maniscalco me parece increíble pero también me parece que hay demasiada información innecesaria: perfectamente podría haberse ahorrado cien páginas o más; sabemos que está ambientada en Italia, como he dicho anteriormente, pero ¿en qué época? ¿tiene eso influencia en el libro? bueno pues aparentemente eso te lo inventas tú, porque nunca se sabe, simplemente das por hecho que es en el siglo XVIII-XIX por cómo se describen las ropas que llevan los personajes, poco más se sabe, y creo que podría haber añadido eso y quitado unas cuantas recetas, que ojo, amo la comida italiana y puedo entender que me quieras explicar algo de su cocina ya que los padres de las gemelas son dueños de un restaurante, pero no hacen falta tantas, me ha quedado claro que les gusta comer, muchas gracias; el libro empieza con las gemelas Emilia y Vittoria siendo inseparables y, de repente, Vittoria está muerta y ni me he enterado. La protagonista da mil vueltas al mismo tema para luego irse por las ramas con otro asunto y luego se vuelve todo un lío porque simplemente este libro está desordenado; tampoco me ha gustado cómo han aparecido los hermanos de Wrath, me ha parecido demasiado fácil la manera en cómo pueden moverse del infierno al mundo de los humanos, y sin hablar de cómo conoce Emilia a Lust, que me ha parecido un capítulo de relleno que no tenía sentido alguno; hay tantas preguntas sin resolver que sé que probablemente no serán resueltas, pero si me pongo a enumerar todo lo que está mal del libro me tiro el mes entero con esta reseña.

Si quieres leer un libro sobre brujas para pasar el rato, este es tu libro, pero no esperes una obra de arte impresionante porque como ya he dicho, este libro tiene un potencial malgastadísimo. Seguramente (100% probable) seguiré con la trilogía, pero ya mis expectativas no son tan altas como las tenía con este.

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I’ll start by saying that this book wasn’t bad at all, but it’s one of those that have so much potential that the author just wasted it in an incredible way.

I think the best thing would be to start with what I liked the most, and it seems to me that Kerri Maniscalco has an amazing way of writing that made me read the book super fast without even noticing the hours that passed. When I read the synopsis I wanted to add it to my tbr because the premise looked amazing: who doesn't want to read about witches and demons? I really liked Emilia, the main character, because of how strong and confident she is, just like Wrath (who also has tattoos, what more could I ask for?). The fact that it’s set in Italy is also a point in favor to the book, I’d never read a book set there and I loved it.

As always, now I come to talk about things that have touched my morale a lot: to start with, I don't know who came up with the idea of classifying this book as “enemies to lovers” when they simply hate each other because Emilia is a witch and Wrath is a demon: there is no more reasons why they are those supposed "enemies" so, for me, this would be rather a “haters to something” because there is almost no romance. I hate when they don't evolve as a "couple", they've basically gone from hating each other to wanting to tear each other's clothes off in two pages: sorry? No, that's not how we go; as I said before, Maniscalco's pen seems incredible to me but it also seems that there is too much unnecessary information: it could have perfectly been a hundred pages or more less; we know that it is set in Italy, as I said before, but in what era? Does that influence the book? well, apparently you make it up by yourself because you never know, you simply assume that it is in the 18th-19th century, because of how the clothes worn by the characters are described, little else is known, and I think the author could’ve added that and removed a few recipes: don’t get me wrong, I love Italian food and I can understand that you want to explain something about their cuisine since the parents of the twins own a restaurant, but you don't need that many, it has become clear to me that they like to eat, thank you very much; The book begins with the twins Emilia and Vittoria being inseparable, and suddenly, Vittoria is dead and I didn’t even noticed. The MC goes around the same topic a thousand times and then goes off on another subject and then it becomes a whole mess because this book is just simply messy; I also didn't like how Wrath's brothers appeared, the way in which they can move from hell to the world of humans seemed too easy to me, and not to mention how Emilia meets Lust, which I thought was a filler chapter that it didn't make any sense; there are so many unanswered questions that I know probably won't be answered, but if I start to list everything that's wrong with the book, I'll spend the entire month with this review.

If you want to read a book about witches to pass the time, this is the book for you, but don't expect a masterpiece because as I said, this book has a very much potential. Surely (100% likely) I will continue with the trilogy, but my expectations are not as high as I had it with this one.

Content Warnings

bootsmom3's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Content Warnings

crystallis's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Content Warnings

mia_s_book_'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I actually enjoyed this book! Wasn’t so sure since thriller isn’t my go to genre but color me surprised, this was good! Loved Wrath and everything about him. However Emilia annoyed me a lot at times, being very obnoxious and making very poor choices, but I do respect her need for vengeance, wit and quick thinking. Also loved the Italian components incorporated into the whole plot, made the book so much more intriguing.

Content Warnings

madarauchiha's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

0.25

❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜 my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 💜 💙 💚 💛 🧡 ❤️

The thing that there's not really a villain in this plot. There's quite unquote bad guys, but they aren't actually legitimately threatening. The

monk character killed a lot of people but so what? He crumpled within a paragraph or so to the mc after being revealed as the killer.

it's not that the mc is never in danger, its that the danger is merely an inconvenience to her. It's never life threatening. Now you might say oh

the snake monster literally nearly killed her. Well that was an animal, not a character with sentience who had been plotting against the mc.

Things just kinda sorta happen around the mc. She doesn't do much to move the plot or cause things to happen. The magic system just felt like Wicca / Paganism. Not a bad thing, just pretty ordinary as far as magic systems go.

A lot happens in this book but at the same time a lot of it just feels like filler. I often found myself more interested in the food descriptions than the characters. Apparently the italian culture wasn't represented authentically. But I have no idea if that's true or not as I'm not italian thank god.
I feel like that entire thing with

envy and the post lsd drop depression

could be gone entirely without much editing. It also felt goofy, like it's trying to make wrath the 'not like other girls' out of all his brothers. I can appreciate that it's stated envy

wouldn't rape anyone under his pseudo lsd influence.

thanks.

The writing is kinda pretty terrible at times. There was almost half a chapter of nothing but dialogue. I had to slip back some pages a few times to figure out who was saying what. The prose strains to be pretty but it's kind generic ya where it uses fancy words that are completely hollow window dressing.

The prose is passable but really weird at times. Like the first time

the mc meets Envy, an antagonist, she literally says nothing, and for so long. It's so jarring and weird and not something that's intended. I guess I'm glad there isn't cringy, poorly written mcu levels of witty banter. But there is no banter.

imagine seeing this scene as a random passerby. You got a young woman shivering and glaring at a random young man who is saying single word sentences at her. Like, hello police? Local neighbor people? Can someone intervene because theres something weird and inappropriate happening here.

The romance was so... Lackluster. Confusing. Oh she loves him except she doesn't except

he's a lying backstabber but she's going to marry him anyways on her quest to revenge her dead murdered sister

. Ok. Whatever. The romance is so childish and immature. Like I get this is a ya novel but I feel like teenagers deserve better than this. Also the mc nearly died and

to cure her magical hypothermia the male love interest undresses them both and they soak naked in a bathtub of hot water.

keep in mind that before and during and even after the mc clearly doesn't like him. Bro this is

sexual assault

but the MC somehow doesn't care that her

enemy and the person she feared the most since childhood did that to her.

The thing I hate is that the author is trying to make this society all forward thinking and progressive but do we see that? Not really. They still insert that wor'd tidbit of men owning their [adult?] daughters and refusing to let them date casually. And that's it, the rest of the plot and society is extremely sexist.

Black characters / characters of color in this book:

"He was the only child of a tunisian father and chinese mother—and had been playing in a nearby olive tree during the brutal slaying of his parents. His father had witnessed a crime and was going to tell authorities what he saw. Before he could do that, they were killed."

So the one named, conversation having black character has

a brutal backstory and is a servant / slave to a white man.

ok thanks for the rep you cunt.

Emotions don't feel especially solid or real. Things like gore, murder, death, seeing other poeple's traumas, etc, don't appear to affect her except on occasion. She can say a lot about how angry she feels or how she wants vengeance. But we aren't shown it as much, and it feels unbalanced.

The ending was so goofy? It felt like a tv show that thought it was going to end so the writers planned for it to peter out. But then woops! The tv execs decided to renew it right before the last episode was shot. Bow the tv show writers need a hook to keep people's interest so they shove something incredibly random and out of character for the mc to do in order to make people stick around.

There was nothing in my copy of the ebook that implied or said that this was a series. This sudden 'btw there's moar!!!' ending was so disappointing and irritating.

Content warnings:

Minor emetophobia,

Medium sharps, blood, gore, misogyny, emetophobia, violence, unreality, murder,

Major manipulation, drugging but with magic?, body horror, violence, animal death, snakes, gore, blood, religion / catholicism?, death,

Content Warnings

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