To Kill a Kingdom

Alexandra Christo
Published: March 2018
Page count: 342
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Goodreads: See here!
Plot at a Glance:
Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.
The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?
Reviewed:
I haven’t been this betrayed by the hype machine since I read Falling Kingdoms By Morgan Rhodes last year.
This book has been all over social media for months surrounding it’s publication. It’s earned a lot of praise and accolades across the book blogging community and I hope you’ll all forgive me for saying this – but I just don’t get it.
To be blunt about it: this book put me into a mini slump. I wish I was as wowed by the plot, or enamored with the characters as everyone else seems to be, but I struggled to find anything here that really grabbed me. In fact, so much of this seemed derivative, and cliched that I found myself wanting to do basically anything else besides reading every time I picked this book up.
I’ve seen a lot of people describe this book as a dark fairy tale. I guess it’s that, if you prefer your darkness to just be a lot of implied violence happening offscreen and being told that things are scary instead of actually being shown scary things happening.
To me, that’s what the majority of this book was: a lot of telling the audience how to feel about everything rather than showing, and allowing the world and characters to grow organically. But at the same time, the writing felt sparse and lacking in detail in many places. It was almost like reading an early draft of a much better novel. Like I could see glimmers that intrigued me, but nothing so captivating that I felt compelled to read on.
The worldbuilding is almost non-existent. The Siren culture never rang true to me. They’re a brutal underwater species, closer to sharks and squids than they really are to human beings. Lira, the princess of her species, is known colloquially above and below the sea as the “Prince’s Bane,” because she has hunted and killed one human prince for each year she’s been alive – and keeps their hearts under her bed.
We never really learn why, or how the heck she’s managed to find 17 separate princes to murder and why the human world hasn’t figured out that it’s probably safer to keep your royalty traveling by land at this point.
The Sirens are also ruled by the Sea Queen, a cardboard and cartoonish villain if ever I’ve seen one. Every line of dialogue she utters would fit in perfectly in an Austin Powers movie. Christo aims for sinister with her Sea Queen, and it just comes off as plain old silly.
Not even murdering 17 human princes is enough to please Lira’s mother, who curses her daughter with a human body and tasks her with killing Elian, the human prince of the Midasian kingdom. As the first plot point to kick off the story, it’s really weak, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and should have been my first clue to check out of this one before I’d really made it out of the starting gate.
Lira and Elian and their “romance” are definitely the worst part of this novel. I never bought their motivations, or their eventual attraction to one another. Lira comes from a bloodthirsty and animalistic race. She is quite literally a murderess of human men at the start of the story, and Elian hunts her kind for sport. He literally finds her floating in the middle of the ocean with no explanation as to how she gets there and can speak the Siren’s language, but he still falls for her. I never once believed that romantic connection between these two characters. It’s just so stilted and inherently false.
The dialogue certainly doesn’t help matters either. Every character has the exact same voice, and sense of humor. They’re all constantly bantering with one another and the worst part about it is that absolutely none of it is funny or even a little bit witty. Writing that is supposed to read clever but is anything but is a pet peeve of mine. Can we just have human characters who talk like real human beings? Do they all need to be outrageously witty and constantly cracking wise with one another?
Every so often a book comes along that reminds me why buying into hype completely is a bad idea. I was so into the idea of this book. It sounded great on paper, and everyone seems to love it, but the experience put into practice was another story entirely.
I’m giving this 2 stars because this is still a debut novel, and because so many people seem to love it, so perhaps I’ve missed something. That being said, the prose read awfully young to me for a Young Adult novel, and was way less captivating than I was hoping it would be.
🌟🌟 = 2 out of 5 stars
Have you read this? What did you think of it? Lets chat about it below!
xoxo
Oh yikes. I’m going to read this one in June and now I’m all “ohdearlord please don’t disappoint me”. :’)
I’m going to wait a bit longer before I pick it up though, or I’ll simply be reminded of all the things you mentioned. Although I’m sure I won’t forget about the 17 princes and the missing explanation surrounding it, haha.
Your rant-y review was fun to read! 😀
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Ahhh I’m sorry you didn’t like it! It’s a little bit amusing to me as well, though, because 99.9% of the time, I’m on the side you’re on with this book, and don’t understand the hype at all, but this time … I’m not? You make great points, though, and I’m lowkey re-evaluating my feelings about it now—I think the fact that this was a debut definitely made me more lenient as well.
Great review! 🙂
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Interesting to reads your thoughts as I am currently devouring this haha. I am 40% and hooked. I love her portrayal of the sirens vs mermaids and am curious to see where the story goes with the Prince and his quest. Now you have me praying it holds up for me 😂 but I am a total sucker for sirens so fingers crossed! I thoroughly enjoyed your review though!
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I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this. Finally someone with opposing viewpoints on this novel!
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Bummer that this one doesn’t live up to the hype. I hate when author’s tell you how to feel rather than organically make you feel a certain way. It is almost like cheating. On to the next one!
http://e135-abookaweek.blogspot.com/
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Oh no, one of my biggest reading pet peeves is when an author tells me how to feel! Hope your next read is better.
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Hiss – I know just how you feel, this happened to me recently too…
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That sounds like a grim reading experience. I think I will give this a miss. Great review as always and here’s hoping your next read is fabulous.
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I’ve been putting this off for ages… Something about it, despite all the hype, just felt a bit cheesy and overdone to me. So I’m glad to say, I shan’t bother now 🙂
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Good to know! I will not be jumping on this bandwagon.
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I loved loved loved reading your review. It came off a little bit like a rant but it was so well supported. I guess I won’t be checking this book out anytime soon
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I really enjoy your honest reviews on popular books! I keep seeing this one everywhere, but it’s good to see another point of view 🙂
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I’m sorry this book didn’t meet your expectations! I haven’t read it yet but I’m planning to pick it up soon. After reading your review, I’ll try to lower my expectations.
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Noooo! I was actually wanting to read this one too. I have been very much in the mood for some sea-based adventures and I was really hopeful about this one even though I tend to not be very into YA.
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I thought this wasn’t bad in the beginning or the end, so I think I enjoyed it a little more than you, but for the most part I agree with you! It definitely fell below my expectations and I didn’t love the characters. I wanted more cool underwater things, but I didn’t think it was well written (like at one part it said someone wiped away a tear, but how could you even tell underwater???).
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Too bad the book didn’t work out. The cover is gorgeous!
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Oh no! Sorry it didn’t work out! This was on my TBR also
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I hate having to drag myself through a book. I hope your next read is better.
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Yessss boy, you tell them like it is! I totally agree on how authors like to make everyone witty and able to spew jokes left and right. Makes me question if I’m just a dry octopus.
Amazing review, enjoyed it from start to end! Hyped stuff are tricky for potential buyers, half the time they disappoint me. Hitchhiker’s Guide was one of them.
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I DNF’d this halfway through because I knew the romance was coming and I don’t think it belonged in there. The bits we got about the Midas kingdom was cool and I liked the difference about the mermaids and sirens being distinct. But I agree with you on most of this review 🙂
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Great review! I thought the blurb sounded really good. But the book did not live up to it. Bummer.
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I have really been on the fence with this one and to be honest hype sort of scares me off. If I pick this up it’ll be a library book for sure, great review as always 🙂
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Ugh… implied darkness and bad romance are certainly not things I’m looking for in a book 🙈
Great review tho! Now i know I don’t need to bother.
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I love the gifs thrown into the review, it perfectly matches your tone!
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I was planning or ordering this book for my library’s teen department- I wonder if I should now.
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Ohh great review, it’s a bummer this book didn’t really work out for you I hope your next reads is a much better one, thank you so much for sharing your awesome post.
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I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it as much love. I’ve also seen this EVERYWHERE…but I’ve been hesitant to pick it up. I might try and get it at the library but I don’t think I’ll purchase it…too many mixed reviews ha-ha!
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Ahoy there! I bought into the hype and borrowed a copy from the library. And I am so glad I did because I had to abandon ship for basically all the reasons ye state here. I mean seriously, if the sirens cannot leave the sea, then why would six princes that are brothers all be on the sea to be killed? I mean wouldn’t at least one of them be like “hmm sirens have it out for me and so I will remain a landlubber all me days.” No motivation for any of them. Bad hunting scenes. Gaping holes in the world building. Ugh. I was very surprised that so many of me crew be loving this one. Whatever floats yer boat. For me this one was a sinker.
x The Captain
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Ah it’s a shame to see that you and this book didn’t jive well with one another. I’ll admit that I was going to buy this book based on the hype, but I was mostly intrigued by the premise. I love anything that is reminiscent of The Little Mermaid (the Hans Christen Anderson version of course), and I adore the mythology surrounding sirens, so I thought this one would be a lovely addition to my library. I think yours is the first review that wasn’t so hot on the book and everything that you’ve mentioned makes complete sense. How DID no one notice the death of 17 princes out on the sea?? Coincidence? I think not LOL. And I was really hoping Lira and Elian wouldn’t fall in love and that we’d have a much more brutal and dark story going on, but it’s disappointing that it falls into the pitfalls of fairytale cliches and YA tropes. Hmmmm, glad I read your review! It’s nice to see another side of the hype. I’m sorry that this one wasn’t all that fun for you. Hopefully your next read is much better!! Wonderful review, btw 😀
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What ?
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Good one
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Oh it’s too bad this was a disappointing read! I haven’t read it yet but I was planning to..and now I’m not so sure haha. I guess everyone has a different experience reading books and sometimes hyped books are just underwhelming. I hope the next book you read is much better! 🙂
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