Kingdom of the Wicked
Ratings214
Average rating3.7
THE CHEMISTRY. THE BEAUTY...of BOTH the writing and the book (I got the one with gold edges and my god I'm swooning). Emilia and Wrath are PERFECT and I ship them so hard my brain hurt by the end of reading. Witches, demons, romance...my gosh what DOESN'T this book have? I know there are some mixed reviews of this book due to historical inaccuracies and whatnot, but Maniscalco edited some things too and I believe that was for the better. I REALLY enjoyed the read, the setting and sense of place, and the characters.
No es mi estilo. La protagonista tiene la edad mental de 13 años y de los personajes masculinos solo se dice que lindos y sexys están , que malvados son, pero no hay una historia interesante detrás. Es bastante obvio a donde apunta todo. No soy el público adecuado para este libro
Dnf at 10%. Wow. Review for book club to come. Felt like a cooking show not a dark romantasy
It was really really good! The pacing was excellent. The reveals little by little were chefs kiss.
Note: the performer of the audiobook made it even BETTER!
CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE
3.75 ⭐️
This was unlike anything I've ever read, 100%, in the best way possible.
Always enjoyed witched related media since I was a kid and this just fulfilled that for me in adulthood. Never in my life did I think I needed to read about prince's of hell but I'm so glad I did.
Huge fuckin thank you to my friend for recommending this series to me, already got the other two books out from the library
Oooo this was a fun audiobook! I loved the narrator and the story is so interesting. Love including the seven deadly sins and how they can impact you
Leuk en spannend. Soms een beetje langdradig, maar niet perse vervelend. Ben wel bang dat het volgende deel een beetje een uittreksel wordt van dit deel, zo van: deel 1 was goed, dus we gaan een deel 2 schrijven.
Leuke schrijfstijl en leest makkelijk weg
No es el mejor libro de fantasía que he leído. No obstante, la historia en general es entretenida.
What a catastrophe. I can't even put into words. But you know what? I enjoyed it all: irritating main character, absence of any logic in characters' actions or plot, cliched (had to look up how this word is spelled) descriptions. There were also some YA hits: curling toes, unmistakenly male smells, lining eyes with kohl and who knows what else.
I don't really see why the books are separated in trilogy, because without next book already available, this one would've been a very disappointing read.
Was this worth the hype?
Yes
Was it perfect?
No
Did the mfc annoy me with her decisions?
75% of the time, yes. But it's YA, so...
Was this exactly what I needed to kick off my spooky season?
YASSSS!
Do I need Kindom of the Cursed asap?
Definitely
• READ IF YOU LIKE:
- Dark Romance
- Fantasy
- Magic
- Witches
- Betrayal
- Enemies to Lovers
- Slow Burn
- Cliffhangers
• RATING: 5/5 ⭐️
For more of my reviews, check out my blog.
I can see why those of you that loved The Cruel Prince really like Kingdom of the Wicked. The same sort of relationship sits at the heart of both stories — enemies to lovers, but also a deep sister relationship. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of the enemies-to-lovers trope, but I can see why it's so popular. And truly, I enjoyed Kingdom of the Wicked way, way more than The Cruel Prince. For those of you that don't know, I liked the first book in that series, and then found myself hating the rest of it the longer I read. That series is beloved by many, but certainly not by me.
Kingdom of the Wicked stars Emilia and her sister, Vittoria. Or it would if Vittoria wasn't murdered 50 pages into the book. This is the catalyst, what starts off everything else in the book. Maniscalco does a fantastic job with the emotions here — you really feel how absolutely gutted Emilia is by finding her sister's body. Emilia, in her rage, grief, and confusion, ends up summoning what she thinks is a demon, but is really one of the seven princes of Hell, Wrath. I wanted to like Wrath a lot more than I did, just because the idea behind him is something really cool. Instead, he's sort of a half-hearted, almost character. There's not much to him, and I'm very much hoping that changes in the next books.
Together, they're all bickering and baring teeth and basically if they were cats, they'd constantly be hissing at each other. Until they aren't, of course. There's one make-out scene, but that's it. Nothing spicier than that, not that I was expecting more as this is firmly within the YA genre.
The rest of the book is just sort of info-dumpy. This is the first book of a trilogy, so it makes sense, but also there had to be a more elegant way of getting the information to the reader than huge paragraphs included in the middle of action. There were a lot of convenient moments, and just awkward inclusions, too. (In this book, what purpose did the shapeshifters have? They do nothing. Why include them yet?) And not to mention, towards the end, there's one ‘twist' that I saw coming literally a mile away. Was anyone surprised by who ended up being Vittoria's killer? Wrath's brothers that we see are entertaining to the extreme, but I do wish we had learned more about how Hell works, exactly. It's left extremely vague.
Despite my complaining, I did enjoy most of Kingdom of the Wicked, and I do plan to read onwards. Three and a half stars!
I was looking for an easy read that didn't require a lot of thought and this was perfect! I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either. I think my favorite things about this were the witch lore and the grandmother.
To be fair, I actually listened to this one as an audiobook and i hate to say it but the narration wasn't for me. This led to me not rewinding each night after going to sleep before the end of my timer (hope that makes sense- at least to anyone with audible!) so while I did finish the book technically, I missed some of it. So not a DNF but might have been had I been reading a physical copy. Again, I should note that this may be down to narrator and/or me missing something from skipping parts (although I didn't skip that much).
I really didn't get on with Stalking Jack the Ripper by this author but found this book to be more up my street.
There were definitely some issues with the pacing and a few scenes just felt a bit off, and I agree with other reviews that the twists were predictable but I still really enjoyed it.
Added an extra star for Wrath alone, loved their snarky banter and him discovering cannolis.
couldn't sleep so i finished this lol
yeah i see why people don't like it. lots of holes and stuff that needed explanation but were tossed aside at the mercy of this weird murder mystery. thankfully i was really enjoying myself from the characters and quick pacing alone, so the confusion didn't really hit until the end (or maybe it's the fact that i finished this at 2am hah)
anyway emilia has my whole heart my messy lil pigheaded girly u stay golden emilia
As a twin, I too would go absolutely feral if someone murdered my sister.
I've gone back and forth with myself about of this was a 3 or 4 star read for me. I don't have an algorithm for ranking books, like garlic I measure that shit with my heart. So I settled on a 3 1/2 rating (rounded up to 4 for Amazon and GR).
Everyone has a lot of secrets and we don't get many answers. The characters are beautiful but we don't see much development. I did enjoy the world building and look forward to seeing how that continues to grow in the second book. Overall it's a good read and and introduction to the series.
