Like, let’s talk about the basic requirements of high fantasy that this book does not even BEGIN to satisfy. I hated this book!!! It’s been so long since I’ve read garbage YA fantasy that I almost forgot why I don’t read YA fantasy like ever!!! Contemporaries can be worse than fantasy could ever be but they are never so horrible to read. Instead, it was boring and romance and boring and terrible banter and boring and confusing info dumps and boring and weird flat writing and oh my god you guys this book was so f*cking BORING!!!

This should have been violence and revenge and piracy and maybe some cool monarchical world-building if there’s time. Because if you guessed “Lira will now participate in a not-so-slow burn but absolutely teeming with sh*tty banter romance with the Siren Killer himself, Elian,” you’re today’s lucky winner! Congratulations. This might sound good, unless you’re like me and cynical and well-versed in YA and you know what that actually means. Get me the heart of an Extra Special Prince - the Siren Killer. This is a Little Mermaid retelling (okay actually still rad) in which Lira is given human legs because she takes a heart without it being her birthday (she can only take a heart for every year yadda yadda) and her mom (the queen, a Very Bad Lady) says oh you think you’re so tough? Okay. Take down the patriarchy/our capitalist oppressors/etc etc. Lira is especially badass, and she ONLY steals the hearts of princes. Sirens RIP the HEARTS out of dudes!! Pretty rad stuff, violent af, we love it. Lira’s a siren - the princess of the sirens. To Kill a Kingdom is (allegedly) a high fantasy about this gal Lira. “Legislation on the books.” Get it? Like that’s what you say about passing legislation successfully, but also it would be legislation on books? God I’m funny.īut let’s talk synopsis. It seems like they should be good and yet they aren’t and that is an injustice so massive I will dedicate the rest of my life to getting legislation on the books that will prevent it from ever happening again. Tell me that doesn’t seem like the rest of the hundreds of pages that follow it should be good!! Tell me! You’d be wrong. But like, come on: “I have a heart for every year I’ve been alive.” This law is for the good of the people, you know? Because then I open them in Barnes & Noble and am like “wow I should buy this” and then I do (except not immediately because I don’t have B&N levels of money honey) and then I’m disappointed and I hate it and it’s honestly bad for all of us. I am proposing a new law: Books that are not good should not be allowed to have really good opening lines.

To kill a kingdom alexandra christo