A review by alleya
A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire: A Blood and Ash Novel by Jennifer L. Armentrout

dark emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

After how much I loved From Blood and Ash, this book was a real letdown. First of all, I found the relationship dynamics between Poppy and Castiel to be extremely troubling. He exhibited very controlling behavior which was justified by his desire to protect her. This reasoning was never seriously questioned. Her resistance to his control always took the form of childish temper tantrums, throwing things, and screaming, so I couldn't even sympathize with Poppy. And worse, those temper tantrums were portrayed as something Castiel found sexy. And there was way too much sex. I love a good sex scene, but I prefer at least a little plot between them.

Finally, the plot -- which is almost nothing. The attraction of a good fantasy series is to immerse in a world and explore it. But we spent large portions of the book just a couple locations. There was also way too much exposition through dialogue. Every time Poppy has "questions" I know that the author is about to do another info dump on us, and it happened way too often. My eyes glazed over after a while. I spent the entire book waiting to get to Atlantia and see what it's like, and it was incredibly disappointing. This felt like a connector book, and I really hope that these problems will all be left behind in this book because it's only my enjoyment from the first book that's going to be enough to get me to try book 3.
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