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A review by mkzwren
The Trouble with Kings by Sherwood Smith
4.0
I liked this book a lot. It's cozy and charming and the plot is wild: amnesia, wedding crashing, 3+ kidnappings, daring escapes, bad poetry readings—all in the first 100 or so pages. It's A Lot, but it worked for me.
The characters are very ... high concept? Rich heiress, wicked prince, dashing rebellious prince, grumpy king, snide court lady, and so on. Feels like they just leapt off their respective TV Tropes pages to have a high stakes brunch together. I'm also gonna go ahead and warn you that they are, without exception, badly named: Maxl (why). Jason (why). Jewel (stop). Garian (fine I guess but why). Flian (WHY??).
Some rainy day in the distant future, I will be rereading this one in print.
In print because it is hands-down the most baffling audiobook I've ever listened to. Flian is shy and reserved so she speaks exclusively in whispers. Everyone else speaks in horrid pseudo-Russian accents. Like ridiculously horrid. It features: guttural growling, ASMR, unintelligible lisps, voices so nasal you will instinctively try to plug your ears while forgetting you are wearing earbuds and instead shove them further into your head, causing mild to serve injury.
But I listened to it quite happily for 12 whole hours so make of that what you will.
The characters are very ... high concept? Rich heiress, wicked prince, dashing rebellious prince, grumpy king, snide court lady, and so on. Feels like they just leapt off their respective TV Tropes pages to have a high stakes brunch together. I'm also gonna go ahead and warn you that they are, without exception, badly named: Maxl (why). Jason (why). Jewel (stop). Garian (fine I guess but why). Flian (WHY??).
Some rainy day in the distant future, I will be rereading this one in print.
In print because it is hands-down the most baffling audiobook I've ever listened to. Flian is shy and reserved so she speaks exclusively in whispers. Everyone else speaks in horrid pseudo-Russian accents. Like ridiculously horrid. It features: guttural growling, ASMR, unintelligible lisps, voices so nasal you will instinctively try to plug your ears while forgetting you are wearing earbuds and instead shove them further into your head, causing mild to serve injury.
But I listened to it quite happily for 12 whole hours so make of that what you will.