To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

TITLE: To Kill A Kingdom

BY: Alexandra Christo

GENRE: Fantasy, Young Adult, Retellings

PUBLICATION: March 6th 2018 by Feiwel Friends

RATING:

She’s the princes’ Bane. He’s a Siren Killer.
They’re both royalties; a Siren Princess and a Golden Prince.

Every year in her birthday, Lira acquires a princes’ heart just as her mother, the Sea Queen, prefers and as next to the throne she must prove herself. But a mistake led the Sea Queen to find a weakness in Lira. As a punishment, Lira has until the solstice to take the heart of the Golden Prince, Elian. Elian believes he believes in the ocean and so it his job to kill the monsters living in it. But when he met Lira, she doesn’t look like a monster at all. And she promised to help him get something that might destroy the Sea Queen. Filled with lies and betrayals, the two takes a journey that might forever destroy each other’s races. The plan was set but they didn’t plan everything…

♥♥♥My Thoughts♥♥♥

I love me a good retelling once in a while but I love it more when it’s one dark retelling. And this one is exactly that. Considering that the MCs are from two different races and are enemies ever since the beginning, it isn’t surprising to see so much killing. And the author didn’t hold back on that part. It was gore and gruesome. and boy do I enjoy it so much. (what does that make me?) 

The world building took me by surprise. It was amazing and very much imaginative. The kingdoms, above and beneath the ocean were all interesting even the ones that weren’t literally visited. Everything was described so clearly and vividly, even the scenes. And that fight in the end was incredible. Breathtaking.

I loved how the characters were portrayed so differently yet so similar. (What?) They belong to different races and yet Elian believed he belonged to the Ocean while Lira when had a taste to be powerless found being human interesting. I loved how resolute these characters are, undettered by the things that get along in their way. They’ll do what they planned to do thanks to the beliefs they’ve grown up with. Yet when given a chance to choose a better choice, they grabbed it. Thus the moral of this story. It was very satisfying. I liked not only how each of the characters depicted but they developed throughout the story.

I enjoyed the banters between Elian and Lira. Their conversations are always fun to read. Elian, a pirate that he is, reminds me SO MUCH of Nikolai Lantsov from GrishaVerse. And that’s saying everything about Elian since Nikolai is one of the best characters in all of Bardugo’s Universe. (I miss you Nikolai) On the other hand, Lira isn’t only badass, she is literally BAD and darn that great. And then there’s Elian’s crew. Is it just me or really, every Pirate’s crew is likeable. To the point they steal the show. I love Kye and Madrid.

Last words. I highly recommend this book to everyone. The author is definitely one of those whose works I’ll always look forward to have/read. Usually I love it when a book is standalone but this particular standalone made me wish that it’s a trilogy. I need more of the romance between the characters and I definitely want to see more of the 100 kingdoms. Oh it’s 101 now.

*Guys, if you want a much clearer review, you should visit Chelle’s post.

🙂 🙂 🙂