Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Kingdom of the Wicked

Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

40 reviews

politewriter's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad 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? Yes

4.0

A rather thrilling fantasy novel. The world building had some rather fantastic depths and color to it. It was really easy to see how the author incorporated their personal experience. I really liked how that meshed. Some elements of their story seemed to get muddled at times, and I found myself needing to go back to reread something in order to understand what was happening. Lots of characters, but the author does a good job of keeping them all straight— as well as their alliances and organizations. However, FL seemed to have very little development throughout the story. She made a lot of odd choices, and that really took away from the tension of the story. I liked the chemistry between the FL and the ML tremendously. I hope to see that further developed in the second volume.

Content Warnings

janetriestoread's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

mypatronusisajedi's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

shaybrawner's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

"Despite his proclamation about not coming for me, he didn’t let me die."

This book is for you if... you like fantasy involving demons.

This book, wow. I went into this not really expecting to like it as it just didn't sound like my type of book. BUT I was so very wrong, this was right up my alley. I have read one other book by Kerri Maniscalco, that being Stalking Jack The Ripper, and I definitely enjoyed that one, but this is miles better despite the same star rating, but that's on my own evolution of reading and how I read and rate books now verses then(no one cares about this lmao).

I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 for two reasons, one: cawpile makes my rating based on an average of things, and two: There were things I think that could've been cut down a bit, like certain scenes that really didn't feel like they added much to the story.

Overall though I HIGHLY recommend this for anyone who enjoys a YA Fantasy. I was gripped by it in the first 100(more or less) pages, and never stopped after that. I could see this being perfect for a readathon or a book to get someone out of a reading slump. I can't wait for the second book, I just need to know what's gonna happen with Wrath and Emilia, if they don't end up together I might lose my mind.

CAWPILE Rating: 8.71/10
Stars: 4/5 Stars
I really need the next book.

Content Warnings

dhwani's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.25

Content Warnings

anapataca3's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

madarauchiha's review against another edition

Go to review page

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

powellki's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

1.5

Content Warnings

baexlee's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

1.5

I really wanted to like this book, and there certainly are parts that I enjoyed. But overall I'm just disappointed. Despite the fact it is established early on that Emilia and her twin are supposedly the best of friends, the impact of the Vittoria's death was lackluster. Where the plot was trying to be mysterious and clever it was convoluted and confusing. I often found myself detached from what I was reading because the descriptions felt flat on the page. I had a hard time caring about Emilia's motivations, or even really understanding what they truly were in the first place, they seemed to change and get lost so often. The timeline is both frantically paced with a day of action packed plot where everything occurs and simultaneously dragging with long stretches of weeks where nothing happens, despite catastrophic threats hovering over the characters heads.

The most redeeming aspect of this book was the setting and Wrath. I found myself rooting for Wrath far more often than I was rooting for Emilia, even though I didn't really know what Wrath was doing throughout the novel. Ultimately though, even he ends up disappointing me. This book didn't feel like it had enough substance to be a series and even in the final few pages there are so many loose ends that I'm incredibly dissatisfied. I'm certainly not opposed to a book series, or a good cliffhanger, but I want the climax of the book to at least offer some satisfying payoff and a sliver of answers, something to hold onto while I wait for the next installment. I knew about as much on the last page as I did halfway through the novel, and that doesn't motivate me to pick up the next book. I liked Wrath enough that I might pick up the next installment to see if the author can save him from the absolute disservice that is done in the last 20 pages, but my expectations are low.

The ending of this book is so frustrating. We spent 300+ pages getting to know Wrath, our hearts warming up alongside Emilia's, all for him to sacrifice himself to save her life and really sell that he's not the demon we believe he is. Just to show up in the final chapter when Emilia believes he is truly dead to help her sign her soul away to Pride. Not to mention, what was the point of the whole marking if he won't actually come when she summons him? Why would he decide to mark her and then we can reasonably assume he ignored her summons after his 'death' since he appeared in the final chapter like he wasn't injured at all. Why give her the ring to help her summon him? Why the castle? Why move in with her? What was Wrath's motivation for ANYTHING in this book, why didn't we get even a glimmer of payoff on this to tempt us into the next novel? There were so many secrets dangled out in front of me and absolutely none of them were answered aside from Antonio, and even he was a red-herring of sorts because he was acting for the will of another house. This felt like a fever dream.

Content Warnings

lisacanteven's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I really wanted to love this book, but I found it so muddled the entire time. The author just throws a whole lot of fantastical elements at the reader and hopes for some to stick. I held out hope that everything would come together in the end, but I'm still not sure it did. I will be reading the second books with the hope of a change of setting and a more clear picture of things. The saying "clear as mud" really sums up this book.

Content Warnings

More...