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A review by joshuacaps
A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire by Jennifer L. Armentrout
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.25
I didn't hate this book. The writing itself is pretty deecent. It's just most of the content, and the amount of content, that was the problem. This book had to be a filler. Right? It was so long, and almost nothing happened. If an editor had come and trimmed it to about half the length, the pacing would have probably been okay, but this book took too long to read and it had very few triumphs.
Let me get some of the gripes out of the way, since I've already started there.
In terms of plot, basically nothing happened.
-Poppy and Dark Prince Perfect are traveling across the country. A small handful of times, there are fights/they are attacked. Dark Prince Perfect is immortal, though, so there is no danger to him. He has dimples, and amber eyes. Did I mention amber eyes? This book is hundreds of pages of Poppy having an internal monologue, mostly focused on Dark Prince Perfect and attempting to rationalize him and what he is doing (making sexual passes and advances, mostly, but whatever) or attempting to convince herself she isn't in love with him until at some point admitting that she is. Stockholm syndrome, really, because she is a prisoner of his for a lot of the book.
That brings me to my next issue: repetition. This book is going to be way too long, AND insult the reader by just repeating itself over and over to fill too many pages?
-Someone gets hurt, Poppy heals them, people see, people are either afraid or in awe, someone tells her she is amazing, she modestly disagrees. Repeat, except in a slightly difference location.
-Dark Prince Perfect looked at her with those amber jewels. He curled his lip up, revealing one of his dimples. Repeat. Repeat.
-Poppy has a *random* question, Dark Prince Perfect says something about being *intrigued*, Dark Prince Perfect blatantly hits on Poppy, Poppy threatens violence, Prince tells her he is turned on, she says something must be wrong with him, he says she likes it. Repeat. Repeat.
-Poppy threatens to stab someone, or someone insinuates that she will. Repeat. Repeat.
Most of the elements of this book can be found in other young adult fiction as well. There are vampires (oh boy, can't wait to get to that), there are wolves, there is magic. The magic isn't well developed, and in fact neither is the world-building. There are a lot of things in the world-building that don't stand up to scrutiny (why would a species evolve to require the blood of only its own kind in order to survive? Absolute nonsense) until you realize they are just thin plot devices drawn up to instigate romance. Dark Prince Perfect needs Poppy's blood because she is a half-blood of his people, moving her into situations where they will both get aroused due to drinking blood and then the boning will happen.
Let's talk vampires. There are vampires (atlantians), vampires (ascended), and vampires (craven). The first vampires are the good vampires. They don't feast on other creatures, they only drink their own kind's blood and require it and only it to survive. Again, that's nonsense, but it was done to coerce Poppy into having sex with Dark Prince Perfect (via the blood drinking, as I mentioned) , as well as to separate the Prince from the other, bad vampires - he doesn't feast on others, he drinks with consent from his own kind, like a good vampire. Then there are the second vampires, who are the bad vampires but also the actual vampires of the story - they're immortal, powerful, hide from sunlight, feast on blood to survive. They've also created an elaborate religion so that society willingly gives its children to them to eat. Clever. Liked all that. Then there are the craven, who are sort of like vampire zombies - mindless beasts that attack people and feed and inspire fear, and all that stuff.
Pretty convoluted, but okay.
You'd think that would be interesting to read about. It isn't. The craven only show up once in this book, so there's a brief fight. We run into the Ascended two, maybe three times tops. The rest is just Dark Prince Perfect traveling with his entourage of wolves, keeping Poppy hostage, and repeatedly making sexual advances on heruntil she succumbs . Then when she attempts to escape, he gets mad at her, calls her stupid. Later on, he tells her she isn't a prisoner, even though she very obviously was a prisoner for most of the book.
Let's talk about Dark Prince Perfect. He spends all his time using his amber eyes on her, and showing dimples, and hitting on Poppy or directly putting hands or other parts on her.She goes from highly resistant to these things gradually to compliant gradually to they get married. He doesn't tell her anything, except that she is *intriguing* or *quite violent*, and that he wants to have sex with her. His whole motivation is getting laid in this book. Weird for a supposedly nuanced character with hundreds of years of life experience, but okay.
He tells her next to nothing about himself until late in the book, meanwhile expecting her to trust him. Honestly, he just withholds as much information about himself as possible until confronted and forced to admit something that we had to learn about from another character. Kieran, to be specific. Kieran basically exists just to give us long explanations of the Prince's background, to present his humanity, and to justify his behavior. Oh, and the threesome that's probably coming in book three, but I think that's a latent consequence. His real purpose is to give us the Prince's softer side because the Prince doesn't tell Poppy anything.
And he gets REAL MAD when she doesn't trust him. Like, when sheagrees to marry him as a business arrangement that they will pretend is real, and then she finds out very publicly that he has been promised to another woman to marry back home. She gets upset that he is supposed to marry someone else, none of which he ever mentioned. And dude gets EXTREMELY upset that she is upset with him . Like, dude, you go from withholding one truth to withholding the next truth for an entire book, you don't get to take the moral high ground about this.
Let's talk about Poppy. Given her background as the Maiden and what she learns about the Ascended, there is great potential for character work here. Missed opportunity. Her whole purpose in this book is to be seduced by Dark Prince Perfect, and her entire personality in this book has become *random* questions and *being quite violent*. I wish I could say more, but there really isn't much to it. She asks a ton of *random* questions, usually unrelated to anything that is happening (hence the *random*), just to justify info dumping about the world. She is a device for the reader to get a lecture on what they need to know about the world, and also as a means for the reader to pretend hot sex with the Prince.
Okay, so I wasn't impressed with this book in a lot of ways. Let me tell you what I did like a lot about this book: This book isn't afraid of sex.
I read a ton of novels, most of which are not in the category of romance, and in the overwhelming majority of those novels, the characters must all be asexual. Some books will tastefully lead up to sex and fade to black. But most books don't include sexuality at all, beyond maybe a surface level comment here or there. I understand this omission of sex is related to publishing and book categorization and all that. I know that if I read romance novels, I will find sex. I'm not criticizing that. I'm criticizing the absence of sex or even sexuality in books that aren't "romance".
I don't think books get worse because of a lack of sexuality (not even sex, just sexuality), but I think books and especially characters have a lot of potential to get better by embracing sexuality. Not all characters need to have sex, because not all people in real life do, but at least SOME of them should have at least an aspect of sexuality to them. On that count, I found it refreshing to see that prevalent in this book. Regardless of my qualms with the way the relationship of Poppy and the Prince develops in this book, I do applaud that the author leaned into sexuality.
That doesn't justify the Prince's sole behavioral motivation being sex, because there ought to be a balance, especially for a guy who is allegedly hundreds of years old. But that goes back to my initial issues with the plot and world-building. Things in this book that should have been three-dimensional are often two-dimensional, and it felt like it.
Let me get some of the gripes out of the way, since I've already started there.
In terms of plot, basically nothing happened.
-Poppy and Dark Prince Perfect are traveling across the country. A small handful of times, there are fights/they are attacked. Dark Prince Perfect is immortal, though, so there is no danger to him. He has dimples, and amber eyes. Did I mention amber eyes? This book is hundreds of pages of Poppy having an internal monologue, mostly focused on Dark Prince Perfect and attempting to rationalize him and what he is doing (making sexual passes and advances, mostly, but whatever) or attempting to convince herself she isn't in love with him until at some point admitting that she is. Stockholm syndrome, really, because she is a prisoner of his for a lot of the book.
That brings me to my next issue: repetition. This book is going to be way too long, AND insult the reader by just repeating itself over and over to fill too many pages?
-
-Dark Prince Perfect looked at her with those amber jewels. He curled his lip up, revealing one of his dimples. Repeat. Repeat.
-Poppy has a *random* question, Dark Prince Perfect says something about being *intrigued*, Dark Prince Perfect blatantly hits on Poppy, Poppy threatens violence, Prince tells her he is turned on, she says something must be wrong with him, he says she likes it. Repeat. Repeat.
-Poppy threatens to stab someone, or someone insinuates that she will. Repeat. Repeat.
Most of the elements of this book can be found in other young adult fiction as well. There are vampires (oh boy, can't wait to get to that), there are wolves, there is magic. The magic isn't well developed, and in fact neither is the world-building. There are a lot of things in the world-building that don't stand up to scrutiny (
Let's talk vampires. There are vampires (atlantians), vampires (ascended), and vampires (craven). The first vampires are the good vampires. They don't feast on other creatures, they only drink their own kind's blood and require it and only it to survive. Again, that's nonsense, but it was done to
Pretty convoluted, but okay.
You'd think that would be interesting to read about. It isn't. The craven only show up once in this book, so there's a brief fight. We run into the Ascended two, maybe three times tops. The rest is just Dark Prince Perfect traveling with his entourage of wolves, keeping Poppy hostage, and repeatedly making sexual advances on her
Let's talk about Dark Prince Perfect. He spends all his time using his amber eyes on her, and showing dimples, and hitting on Poppy or directly putting hands or other parts on her.
He tells her next to nothing about himself until late in the book, meanwhile expecting her to trust him. Honestly, he just withholds as much information about himself as possible until confronted and forced to admit something that we had to learn about from another character. Kieran, to be specific. Kieran basically exists just to give us long explanations of the Prince's background, to present his humanity, and to justify his behavior. Oh, and the threesome that's probably coming in book three, but I think that's a latent consequence. His real purpose is to give us the Prince's softer side because the Prince doesn't tell Poppy anything.
And he gets REAL MAD when she doesn't trust him. Like, when she
Let's talk about Poppy. Given her background as the Maiden and what she learns about the Ascended, there is great potential for character work here. Missed opportunity. Her whole purpose in this book is to be seduced by Dark Prince Perfect, and her entire personality in this book has become *random* questions and *being quite violent*. I wish I could say more, but there really isn't much to it. She asks a ton of *random* questions, usually unrelated to anything that is happening (hence the *random*), just to justify info dumping about the world. She is a device for the reader to get a lecture on what they need to know about the world, and also as a means for the reader to pretend hot sex with the Prince.
Okay, so I wasn't impressed with this book in a lot of ways. Let me tell you what I did like a lot about this book: This book isn't afraid of sex.
I read a ton of novels, most of which are not in the category of romance, and in the overwhelming majority of those novels, the characters must all be asexual. Some books will tastefully lead up to sex and fade to black. But most books don't include sexuality at all, beyond maybe a surface level comment here or there. I understand this omission of sex is related to publishing and book categorization and all that. I know that if I read romance novels, I will find sex. I'm not criticizing that. I'm criticizing the absence of sex or even sexuality in books that aren't "romance".
I don't think books get worse because of a lack of sexuality (not even sex, just sexuality), but I think books and especially characters have a lot of potential to get better by embracing sexuality. Not all characters need to have sex, because not all people in real life do, but at least SOME of them should have at least an aspect of sexuality to them. On that count, I found it refreshing to see that prevalent in this book. Regardless of my qualms with the way the relationship of Poppy and the Prince develops in this book, I do applaud that the author leaned into sexuality.
That doesn't justify the Prince's sole behavioral motivation being sex, because there ought to be a balance, especially for a guy who is allegedly hundreds of years old. But that goes back to my initial issues with the plot and world-building. Things in this book that should have been three-dimensional are often two-dimensional, and it felt like it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Death
Minor: Gaslighting