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A review by courtney_saba
Kingdom of the Cursed by Kerri Maniscalco
1.0
What a goddamn disappointment.
This book deserves a 1 star when I was fighting to rate the first book between a 4 and 5. WTF happened?
Dare I say it, I loved this story when there was absolutely zero sexy times involved. KotW had one really sexy makeout scene, and bc there was only one, I appreciated it more. This book? When weren't they horny as fuck and acting like teenagers and every other freaking horribly written NA book? At the 20-30% mark, I started to skim bc there was no purpose to this book.
I guess since it went from YA to NA, the author decided to shove all relevant and wellthoughtout characterizations and writing skills and plot off a cliff with a merry wave! When I tell you that there was ZERO resemblance to book 1, I shit you not, I'm telling the 100% truth.
Emilia kept saying she wanted revenge and wanted to find her sister's killer and will take over the underworld to get what she wants...okay, when is that going to happen bc almost 500 pages went by and she only thought of her sister in the last 10% of the book? Also, is a flaming flower in your hand a sign of...Power? Badassery? Bc it's a flower. That's it. She extinguished it both times, too, so doubly stupid to think this was a power enhancement. And where was the fear, dread, villainy, and evilness in the underworld? It was basically human society, just Princes of Hell instead of plain old Princes. Like Bridgerton with so-called "demons" who weren't scary at all and who didn't live up to the expectations set in the first book about how wicked the Wicked truly were. The scaaaaaarrrrry Feast of the Wolves had pages worth of describing a boring ass multiple course meal that we got to read! There was frozen strawberry vinaigrette. Like WTF is happening here?!
Chapter 17 was just as bad as everyone else was saying it was, but added to that, it was childish and immature and USELESS. The Feast of Wolves was such a let down and no Prince of Hell tried to manipulate Emilia AT ALL, so what was the freaking purpose of a violating and manipulating "training session" other than to fill up pages and waste my time? Plus, all this fear about being the guest of honor, forfeiting a secret desire or fear, and it ended up being a really fucking dramatic excuse for cunnilingus? Like WTF just happened?
And come on...does every female character have to have amnesia in some way and she's probably gonna be revealed as an ancient witch reincarnated or some other dramatic thing and of course there are tons of secrets being kept from her that's the whole reason for keeping the plot going? I'm tired of these lame tropes authors use in their stories bc they're lazy or they're succumbing to booktok tropes and people pressuring them to change their ideas to the point that they're sellouts or whatever the reason is for being unoriginal and copying what everyone else is doing. This is mean, but it seems like the route the book world is going and that's the saddest thing ever. Trying to find fantastic books with some to no influence from booktok nowadays is both a chore and a sad experience. I've succumbed myself, but I'm just tired now.
The cliffhanger was supposed to be...dramatic and angsty, I think? Like, am I supposed to be torn about them finally getting to join their genitalia when the whole book was just horniness galore? Come on.
I thought this was gonna be a 5 star series. Turns out, it's gonna be a total of 5 stars combined by the end.
Happy reading, Goodreads fiends. I'm fuming.
This book deserves a 1 star when I was fighting to rate the first book between a 4 and 5. WTF happened?
Dare I say it, I loved this story when there was absolutely zero sexy times involved. KotW had one really sexy makeout scene, and bc there was only one, I appreciated it more. This book? When weren't they horny as fuck and acting like teenagers and every other freaking horribly written NA book? At the 20-30% mark, I started to skim bc there was no purpose to this book.
I guess since it went from YA to NA, the author decided to shove all relevant and wellthoughtout characterizations and writing skills and plot off a cliff with a merry wave! When I tell you that there was ZERO resemblance to book 1, I shit you not, I'm telling the 100% truth.
Emilia kept saying she wanted revenge and wanted to find her sister's killer and will take over the underworld to get what she wants...okay, when is that going to happen bc almost 500 pages went by and she only thought of her sister in the last 10% of the book? Also, is a flaming flower in your hand a sign of...Power? Badassery? Bc it's a flower. That's it. She extinguished it both times, too, so doubly stupid to think this was a power enhancement. And where was the fear, dread, villainy, and evilness in the underworld? It was basically human society, just Princes of Hell instead of plain old Princes. Like Bridgerton with so-called "demons" who weren't scary at all and who didn't live up to the expectations set in the first book about how wicked the Wicked truly were. The scaaaaaarrrrry Feast of the Wolves had pages worth of describing a boring ass multiple course meal that we got to read! There was frozen strawberry vinaigrette. Like WTF is happening here?!
Chapter 17 was just as bad as everyone else was saying it was, but added to that, it was childish and immature and USELESS. The Feast of Wolves was such a let down and no Prince of Hell tried to manipulate Emilia AT ALL, so what was the freaking purpose of a violating and manipulating "training session" other than to fill up pages and waste my time? Plus, all this fear about being the guest of honor, forfeiting a secret desire or fear, and it ended up being a really fucking dramatic excuse for cunnilingus? Like WTF just happened?
And come on...does every female character have to have amnesia in some way and she's probably gonna be revealed as an ancient witch reincarnated or some other dramatic thing and of course there are tons of secrets being kept from her that's the whole reason for keeping the plot going? I'm tired of these lame tropes authors use in their stories bc they're lazy or they're succumbing to booktok tropes and people pressuring them to change their ideas to the point that they're sellouts or whatever the reason is for being unoriginal and copying what everyone else is doing. This is mean, but it seems like the route the book world is going and that's the saddest thing ever. Trying to find fantastic books with some to no influence from booktok nowadays is both a chore and a sad experience. I've succumbed myself, but I'm just tired now.
The cliffhanger was supposed to be...dramatic and angsty, I think? Like, am I supposed to be torn about them finally getting to join their genitalia when the whole book was just horniness galore? Come on.
I thought this was gonna be a 5 star series. Turns out, it's gonna be a total of 5 stars combined by the end.
Happy reading, Goodreads fiends. I'm fuming.