I do have to say this before I start the review: all opinions are my own. It is fine for me to hate this book while another person loves it. Everyone has their own opinions.
I know if I don't say this then people will probably give me shit about hating a popular book that so many of you seem to love and enjoy. Just remember, MY OPINION!
Now that that is out of the way, lets get right into the review.
I honestly had such high hopes for this book. When I heard that this was going to be a dark and twisted retelling of The Little Mermaid I though PERFECT!! I love myself a dark and twisted story... but To Kill A Kingdom was such a let down.
DNFed at page 80 (chapter 13)... for reasons that are to come.
So if you do not know what To Kill A Kingdom is about then here is the synopsis:
I have a heart for every year that I've been alive.
There are seventeen hidden in the sand of my bedroom. Every so often, I claw through the shingle just to check they're still there buried deep and bloody.
Princess Lira is siren royalty and revered across the sea until she is cursed into humanity by the ruthless Sea Queen. Now Lira must deliver the heart of the infamous siren killer or remain a human forever.
Prince Elian is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world, and captain to a deadly crew of siren hunters. When he rescues a drowning woman from the ocean, she promises to help him destroy sirenkind for good. But he has no way of knowing whether he can trust her...
See all the hope this book had?!
My experience while reading
Well I DNFed To Kill A Kingdom... so it is safe to assume I did not have a pleasant time reading it.
So the book is written in both Lira's and Elian's point of view, which I felt was highly unnecessary.
The Elian chapters were so boring, they added a little bit to the story, but nothing too memorable. Of the few Elian chapters that I did read I was often finding myself wanting to skip them. I found that they did not bring much to the story and didn't have a purpose.
The Lira chapters were somewhat more pleasant to read. I did enjoy the first couple, but then after that I also felt they were unnecessary. I would have much preferred to read this book in Lira's point of view, not both of these characters. It was just unnecessary.
Characters
You now know that we follow both Elian and Lira from their point of views. Both these characters were unrelatable, I could not connect with any of them. They both seemed to be these weird characters that appeared to have no motivation and no independency.
I found Elian to be really annoying. I couldn't stand his character, hence making his chapters a pain to read. I don't know how old he is, because I never paid any attention to his chapters, but I felt he acted younger for what he is perceived to be.
Lira, as told to us, is suppose to be 17 years old, almost 18, but she acts like she is 12. If she is suppose to be close to an adult, then why does she act like she is a child?
I don't even want to think about these two characters anymore.
Plot
For the 79 pages that I did read I definitely felt like nothing happened. To Kill A Kingdom is about 360 pages long, so you would expect things to be a little fast paced... but no. Everything was slow and hard to keep up with (because of the writing, which is explained later). Sometimes I didn't even know what was happening.
I can't talk about the rest of the plot, considering I haven't actually read it. But just know that what I have read I hated.
Writing
Man, this is the worst part of To Kill A Kingdom! The writing made it excruciating to read... no joke.
To start of with Christo would often take little tangents from the plot to explain some things. Now, I understand this happening ever so often, but when it is happening all the time, on every page, it makes it hard to focus directly on the plot. I definitely could not figure out what was actually happening and which parts were just information that was unnecessary to begin with.
Another thing that I did not like about the writing was that I felt like to took me ages to read. I was putting too much effort into reading the words that were on the page. When an author does this, I start to feel unmotivated to read it because it is taking me ages to get through. The effort should not have been there.
Another thing to add to the list was the descriptions used. They were so confusing and I even have an example. On page 71, Christo describes the sunrise as "milky orange". Would anyone like to kindly inform me what this colour looks like? Because when I google "milky orange colour" there are multiple different shades of orange and brown come up. There are more of these nonsensical descriptions throughout the book.
Can I also say, that in the blurb of the book, a "shingle" is used to describe Lira's bedroom floor. Does anyone else find this nonsensical? A shingle is often found at the seashore, but Lira's bedroom is no where near one...
I could continue to rant... but I should probably stop.
Someone please burn this book out of my mind!
I rated this book 1 out of 5 stars. Obviously this is my opinion and I am not offending the author or anyone who did enjoy this book. I, personally, did not like it.
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