Book review of "Kingdom of the Wicked" by Kerri Maniscalo

SYNOPSIS:

Two sisters.

One brutal murder.

A quest for vengeance that will unleash Hell itself…

And an intoxicating romance.

Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe—witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin… desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost—even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.

Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked Princes of Hell that she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems…

MY RATING: 2/5 stars

GENRE: Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Young adult, Romance (?)

Kingdom of the Wicked is a story about two twin sisters that are witches in a society that isn't super friendly to witches. One of the sisters is found murdered, and her twin Emilia sets out to find her murderer and exact revenge. Her method of revenge? Calling upon Wrath, one of the seven Princes of Hell to help her find her sister's murderer. The story then follows Emilia on her path to solving the mystery behind her sister's murder as well as her various interactions with the Princes of Hell.

So this was my first "forage" into the world of booktok after seeing this book being recommended in pretty much every video I came across. Not one to ever miss out (FOMO anyone?) I decided to pick this one up. I actually started out really enjoying this book. The main female character seemed like she was driven, ambitious, and an all around badass. The setting was one I was not used to, but ultimately I liked the idea of a fantasy novel about witches being set in 19th century Sicily. And the cover alone would have made me pick it out of a lineup, it is so pretty. However, about halfway through the story I started to get really, really bored and confused. I took long breaks between my reads, and generally struggled to get through each chapter. It went from a 4 star, possibly 5 star read, straight into why and how did I finish this book territory. If you'd like to hear my thoughts on the good, the bad, and the mediocre, keep on reading.

The good:

1. The cover, I know I've already mentioned this previously, but I'm not one to pass on the opportunity to appreciate a good cover. Seriously, this book's cover kind of gave me shivers.

2. The setting/atmosphere. Yes, yes, I know. I've already mentioned this too, but the things this book does well is the strongest point it has to go on, and probably the best explanation as to why I put myself through the painstaking task of reading through it. The author writes her setting and atmosphere so well that I genuinely felt like I was right there with Emilia on the streets of Sicily. There were some aspects about the setting that were confusing (like I kept forgetting what century this was supposed to be set in) but I think the author actually put a lot of effort into details, although one could argue she put in a little too much effort that it started to become overkill sometimes (like how many descriptions of food does a book need to have?)

3. The plot. Now by the plot, I mean the idea for the story itself. Once you read a few YA fantasy novel, you feel like you've read them all. They all follow the same cookie-cutter tropes and plots and I've gotten to the point where nothing seems to surprise me anymore. And yes, Kingdom of the Wicked does fall into this category, however I can't berate the uniqueness of the plot. I can genuinely say that it was a new idea to have witches, mixed with the wicked Princes of Hell, a murder mystery plot and then set that all in Sicily. However, while the book attempts to separate itself from the many YA fantasy novels that are out there, it falls into a trap common to most YA novels. It becomes pretentious and quite confusing.

4. The writing. Truthfully I found the writing to be very beautiful.

"Grief carved me in half. And fury honed the pieces into a weapon.

Like this line made me wish I actually liked the book, because it is so beautiful.

The Bad:

1. The intoxicating romance that was talked about in the summary of the book? Yeah, it was barely there. Talk about false advertising. I think there was one kiss scene written that honestly if you blinked you'd have missed it. Truthfully, by the point that kiss scene did come around I really wasn't interested in the romance brewing. I like slow burns as much as the next person, but to be honest Emilia and Wrath were not interesting enough for me to actually care about their "blossoming romance". I felt like again the author was just checking off boxes of what makes a good YA fantasy romance (enemies to lovers? Check). Frankly I didn't find it intoxicating, more like mediocre at best.

2. The plot. Weird that I put the plot as both the good and the bad right? I genuinely feel like the plot of this book had promise, but about halfway into the book I realized I actually had no idea what was happening. Everything started to get convoluted, and there were so many plot holes and attempts at plot twists that it just ended up falling flat. I felt like the mystery portion of the book fell flat for me as well, and when they revealed who killed Vittora not only was I not surprised, but the main thought that went through my mind was "why should we care?" Also 1 month after reading the book, I'm still trying to understand the murderer's motive cause it felt super shallow. It just got to a point where I had 100 pages left to finish and it felt like triple that amount to me. When the ending came around, I think it was supposed to be this major "WOW" moment, but the only thing I felt was relief to finally be done. I couldn't tell you what even happened in the ending, that was how far gone I was. It was just such a giant snoozefest to me. So while the idea of the story is unique, I feel like the delivery was lacking quite a bit.

3. The worldbuilding. Throughout the entire novel I was confused about the Princes of Hell, how they're summoned, and ithe way their Houses worked was especially confusing for me. There were some inconsistencies in terms of how they're summoned, and it was almost like the author stopped following the rules she herself set out in the beginning for how the whole summoning thing worked so it could become more convenient for the characters. Also the Houses and how you can ally with them was so confusing and I felt like that was such an important piece to understand so you can grasp what was actually happening towards the ending. The streghe part I understood, but her descriptions and worldbuilding for the Princes of Hell were genuinely so inconsistent and confusing it was hard for me to follow.

4. Emilia. I really did like Emilia in the first half of the book, because I tend to gravitate towards books that have female characters that are written as strong, brave and driven. But halfway through, it felt like Emilia's reasonings for the things she did wasn't really driven by bravery but rather by stupidity. She became extremely reckless, and I feel like when an author has to make their main character careless to serve as a plot point and move the story along, then there never was a story to tell in the first place.

The mediocre:

1. Wrath. I felt like Wrath was just an okay main male character. In the first half I actually enjoyed his banter with Emilia. Halfway through, however, I started to get bored of him. Like really bored of him. There was a fanart that was going around the internet of Wrath before I picked this book up.

(This one. I won't even lie this picture was the main reason why I picked up the book in the first place)

However, I feel like all that hype for his character was really unwarranted. He was just there. He is supposedly Wrath, one of the Princes of Hell, and he was characterized as a brooding high school teenager, whose main personality trait is corny one liners. I didn't end up disliking him like I did Emilia, but I didn't love him either.

Overall I was severely disappointed with this book, and it only served to perpetuate my general distrust for booktok. Most of the recommendations I've gotten from there have been a major miss for me (like the Invisible Life of Addie Larue - which I also have a review out on). It's a series, and I believe the second book is coming out sometime in 2021 or maybe 2022 (I didn't care enough about the book to look at the release date). I don't think I'll be picking up the next book in the series. This book would have probably been a DNF for me halfway through but I'm stubborn and felt like punishing myself.

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