Reviews with content warning for Death - Kingdom of the Wicked

I loved the vibes of this book! Gothic, witchy, dark, and mysterious. The writing was easy to follow but enticing and exciting to read! I would have loved some more descriptions in general; the food descriptions were great, but I would have loved some more descriptions of people and places. I like to paint a picture in my head, and I didn't quite get enough detail for that.

The plot was engaging and intriguing - I couldn't put it down! I loved the mystery and Emilia's investigation into who killed her sister, although the whodunit at the end was not surprising in the least.

I would have loved more character development; by the end, Emilia TOLD us how she had changed and what she had learned throughout the book, but I'm not sure I actually SAW any of those changes come about during the story, which made the ending a bit unbelievable, but I am interested to see what her character will have evolved into in the second book.

I'm not totally sure I'm buying into the romance aspect of things... like Emilia, I can't quite get a read on who Wrath really is and how he feels. And the ending was a tad confusing; he seemed like an entirely different person!

I know it was mentioned a few times in the book that demons (and Princes of Hell) don't feel emotions the same way humans do, but

his deadpan moody aesthetic was a tad frustrating to read and made it really hard to make an emotional connection with him because we have barely any idea what he's feeling. There were times where we got a glimpse into what he was feeling, and his actions definitely spoke louder than his words, so I do get where the feelings stem from. I think the ending just really confused me...

I'm hoping he's just really jealous and this is the way he's dealing with it.

Really excited for the next book!

Content Warnings

clairew97's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.25

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thefebruaryfriday's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense fast-paced

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

2.5

Usually, when I finish a terrible book I feel so much hate and disappointment but this time instead of hating I laughed my ass off with this one.

First things first, let's talk about the plot. Cheerfully this book had one, but it was a complete mess, there were so many things happening and a lot of it was just random, some really bad stuff popping out of nowhere and being solved in the blink of an eye. I'm sorry, there was so much telling and not showing that it was hard to appreciate the feeling of being desperate to know what was going to happen on the next page. The dialogue made me cringe at many parts, it was more like Emilia asking stupid questions about something no one cared but the author wanted us to, than an actual conversation. And the way that something was suddenly important, like Emilia's parents, but it disappeared until it was convenient to appear again, like what?
But even though I hated these aspects, every awkward conversation made me laugh and the fact that every time you flip a page there's something different happening made me go through this very quickly. The ambience and the world-building are actually interesting but could be more explored and better explained.
Wrath is actually kind of funny with all of his lessons and grumpy personality, I like him.
Emilia is just like every other fantasy character, completely stupid and dull, she doesn't have a personality other than 'solving the mystery of her sister's death'. And what a hell of a plot twist, I found out everything in the middle of the book and wasn't even a little surprised.

Will I read the sequel? Of course, wasting my time is my favourite hobby.

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mckennamagic's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.25

I like the premise and the characters but it was very lack luster for me. It could be so much more!

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raypaws's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

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traceyanderson's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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starofash's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

okay, so i really liked this book!
it was pretty fast-paced and the story began very quickly and had a mostly direct writing style which i really liked. also, the plottwist was unexpected in my opinion, i only guessed it while it was already being revealed lmao
the food themes and witchcraft were amazing, a bit more explantion about the magic system would've been nice but i feel like it's also realistic that emilia doesn't know a lot about it because her nonna seems to keep a lot of it secret
the main characters, wrath and emilia were lovable and i understood them, because although emilias stubbornness in regards to who the murderer was was a bit annoying, it was also understandable and in character. if i only want to scream at the character, that's fine for me. also, emilias character development was amazing
wrath was also really amazing, i loved his character. (i love me a smug asshole and he kinda was that)
but the romance really made me a bit uncomfortable? i really like enemies to lovers, but something about the romance in this book rubbed me the wrong way, idk.
another complaint i had was that i read it in german but the wicked were still called wicked which was kinda weird and definitely took some getting used to
still very excited for part 2!!!

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