To Kill a Kingdom

Very good book. My favorite character is Lira. A dangerous siren ready to kill any and every prince who comes her way, but she is keen to kill one specific price, the prince of gold from Midas, to show her mother that she is capable to reign the oceans and become the sea queen. The conclusion is amazing, and I love how she got to bring the human lands with the sea realm. And I really love Lira's relationship with Elian.You don't find a lot of books about sirens, especially pirates and I was so excited to read this book! I had such high expectations and still they were exceeded!!I don't rate books 5 stars all the time, but this book was absolutely worth it! The writing was just beautiful and I loved the relationship of the deadly pirate and prince of gold with the dangerous and powerful siren princess!To be completely honest, this book didn't have me completely till around 30%, but after that I was engrossed!! It was actually worth it!!I loved the banter between the characters, and the romance seemed really well developed. Lira and Elian were just so well written, and the secret keeping, and guilt involved made it a really good read for me( I just really really like guilt and angst that follows in any book).

To be fair, it’s 1.5 cause I was slightly interested in one or two chapters.And I’m using the word VERY in every sentence cause I’m feeling -here it comes- very indignant.Just very briefly I would like to say that the whole book felt like a shoujo manga. Anyone familiar with those Japanese comic books in that specific genre? Yes.How?You know how in those shoujo mangas the lines and details on their faces are very vague and they somewhat all look the same? The background is drawn minimally or not drawn at all?It felt the same with this book. Very immature. Very cartoonish. Very void plot wise.The characters are all the same if anything, very bland, very normal, trying so hard emit any badassery that feels unnatural and extremely forced. The entire crew felt like something that came out of One Piece excluding any background/ real depth for us to care for them.And all Elian (the male antagonist) does is keep on bragging on how powerful, amazing, free, close, yada yada yada they are but I see NONE of the described! And IF, by any chance, the dialogue among these “crew” members written in text is a sneak peek of their bond then, spare no more, I’m not interested at all.And the author clearly has no idea what being a pirate means.Or a royalty.Or a siren.Or a character with dimensions and being composed of layers and layers like an onion (see what I did there?)Or any of the sort.And why is Elian SO opposed to being a king? I don’t get it. There isn’t any valid reason except him being a spoiled brat. Why start a pirate line? Why? What happened that scarred him so bad for him to find sanctuary in such barbarous concept that is Pirates? (not applied on his “crew”). And HOW did it all start? When? W-w-w-w———And why is Lira very submissive to her mother like that? Yes she’s awful, but why is her mother just awful? Is there no deeper dark scene of her being remotely fearful that Lira submits in such fright and blindly follows? I wanted a (very) gruesome scene not a trail of Little Mermaid’s Sebastian orchestra’s members being devoured by the tentacle lady as she summons her daughter.Let’s not get into the writing... I mean, it had SOME phrases that felt nice. Some. But the metaphors were just crushing the fantasy.“- It feels like silk. Maybe because it is silk.” ?????????????????????????I mean, what are we supposed to conclude from that? That the character is stupid or that they have never felt or owned a silk cloth before?And the banter between the two main characters? It made me weep. Legit tears. And my eyes rolled 360 degrees horizontally and vertically (don’t Algebratise/Physics me).Bottom line: the actual problem of this book is that the content claims to be so many things, the characters label themselves as many things but there’re no evidence, no proof, no details, just statements, and statements, and oh, more repeated statements.I used to love reading shoujo just to waste time when I’m heavily pressured. Fast forward- Being a mother that is highly stressed again; I thought I’d pick up a good YA book.Guess I was wrong.Overall? Not recommended.P.S. I have no idea how to manipulate the fonts in italic and in bold.

I will admit, I didn't know much about To Kill a Kingdom when I picked it up other than that there was a lot of hype surrounding it. I expected standard YA fare, maybe some instalove, but this book delivered! Say hello to my first five star read of 2018!Princess Lira is the MC of this story, and she is a siren. More specifically, she's the daughter of the Sea Queen. Her life has been brutal and she has spent her childhood gaining a reputation as a prince killer. When her mother turns her into a human, Lira is forced to live as one of them in order to get close enough to kill Prince Elian.I loved both these characters so much! In fact, I loved them all. Lira is brutal and strong and amazing and I loved her. I also loved Prince Elian, who was completely not who Lira (or I) expected him to be. I adored the chemistry between these two characters and loved watching them not trusting each other. I love the enemies to lovers trope so much and, although it goes wrong so often, Alexandra Christo wrote it perfectly! Thankfully, no instalove in sight and the romance is written convincingly, even though you know what's going to happen from page one.One of the things that makes To Kill a Kingdom so great is the incredible cast of secondary characters. The Sea Queen was honestly kind of terrifying in a way that not many villains achieve and I loved it every time the threat of her was near. I thought Elian's crew and Lira's cousin were all well fleshed out, important side characters and I loved them all!The world building was also fantastic, blending multiple cultures and mythologies seamlessly. I felt like I could picture each new setting in my mind and, following the characters on their journey, I could almost imagine I was with them! The pacing is also great, not at all too slow. It was just enough to keep me interested with some totally crazy action thrown in here and there.This brings me to the absolutely amazing plot of To Kill a Kingdom! Confession: I've never read a siren story that I really enjoyed. To Kill a Kingdom did sirens the right way. They are fierce and terrifying. I loved following Lira from that undersea world into one that was totally unfamiliar and watching her go from a girl on a murderous mission to one completely different was thrilling! There were real stakes and urgency and I feel like I'm started into fangirl territory.To Kill a Kingdom was the biggest surprise I've had this year! I was surprised when it showed up in my mailbox and I was surprised when I absolutely loved it! Although I thought it had an absolutely perfect ending, I am a little sad that there won't be a part two. Alexandra Christo has definitely won a space on my autobuy authors list! Whether you're a fan of sirens and mermaids or not, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of this book!