A review by lizlovesbooks95
The Half King by Melissa Landers

2.0

Read this on KU for a book club, and was glad to discuss it after every chapter with everyone on the Fable app. It showed me that my thoughts weren't too harsh. If you're thinking of reading this, I'd say skip it unfortunately. I thought about DNF'ing but I pushed through. The concept for this book was really great, but the execution was just not it. I felt that the topics were just too rushed and jumbled together, even though this will be a duology I believe. We go from the FMC Cerise being at a temple waiting to receive her Sight, to her traveling to the king's palace, to discovering the king's ailment of disappearing into a shadow every night due to the kingdom's 1st born child's curse (BTW...there are 3 more curses that are lightly touched upon). Then the king and Cerise fall into Insta Love, and a few of the characters go on an adventure to find magic runes and a magic sword in order to break the curses that plague the 1st Borns. The villain was predictable and obvious, and there's a twist at the end that didn't make sense to me. I felt that the characters could've been more fleshed out and expanded upon, although I saw the potential. Maybe a few books in the author can improve upon the layout of her ideas.