![]() 4-4.5 / 5 Well she’s finally here and I finally read it. Kingdom of the Cursed lived up to any and all expectations. I was a little late actually getting the whole thing read because I got caught up in school and life that didn’t involve any Princes of Hell, much to my constant disappointment. A lot of the buzz around this sequel is that it changes the series from Young Adult to New Adult. I’ve been bamboozled by TikTok before so I’ll admit that I thought y’all were straight up lying to me again, but you weren’t. The thing about the whole YA vs. NA thing is that it’s really hard to know when it leaves one category and goes into the next. I couldn’t tell you what makes something YA over NA but I know it when I see it. I personally don’t think the presence of a sex scene or sexual tension means that a book can’t be YA, so I figured that’s how I would feel about Kingdom of the Cursed and in some ways it is. It’s not the spiciest thing I’ve ever read, but even I will admit that jokes about knifeplay probably warrant a New Adult designation. Along that vein, the *ahem* tension between Wrath and Emilia was actually worked into the plot and magic of the novel in a very purposeful way. It was sometimes difficult to tell if they were actually into each other or if it was just the pesky betrothal bond wreaking it’s merry havoc (how does this work exactly? Asking for a friend…). That back and forth of their relationship carried over really smoothly from book one but continued to develop in interesting ways in book two. I like my enemies to lovers to legitimately dislike and distrust each other a little bit, and ya girl Maniscalco gives that in spades. I knew I should have re-read KOTW before I started this but I did not, so I was a little lost sometimes but for the most part I found it pretty easy to pick up on what was happening and the references to the last book. Kingdom of the Cursed was much more character-driven than Kingdom of Wicked, which in a lot of ways I enjoyed. I was invested in the mystery and politics and I think all of that was really well-done and fully fleshed, but I’m not going to lie, I only really care about Wrath and Emilia. We are not here for critical thoughts, just vibes. I also found that the mystery plot dragged a little bit, but it didn’t really affect my enjoyment of the book. Sometimes I found Emilia’s refusal to talk to Wrath frustrating because it would have sped up the pace of that storyline considerably so it occasionally felt like we were going in circles. Overall though, this book was consciously more focused on their relationship and Emilia’s background so this didn’t really negatively impact the reading experience. And of course, another doozy of a cliffhanger because what’s life without a little pining?
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