The Kiss of Deception | Book Review

Title: The Kiss of Deception
Author: Mary E. Pearson

Series: The Remnant Chronicles #1

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Pages: 489 (Hardcover)

Average Goodreads Rating: 4.7/5

My Rating: 2.75/5

When Lia is forced to marry a prince of another country for a political alliance, she runs away to a small town. There she meets two men, the prince and an assassin, and discovers things about herself she never would have guessed would to be true.

Well, I didn't hate it. There is a lot of hype, undeserved hype, surrounding this book. The premise of the story is interesting but nothing special. The first 230 pages were pretty good but after that things went downhill. I usually like to start off with the things I liked but for this book there were none.

Something that really needed improvement was the world building. Throughout the book the audience was given only small glimpses of the what the world is like and what the culture is. There are a lot of references to the culture and beliefs, but those are never fully explained. The culture of the world seems pretty interesting and I want to know more, but there is no information on it. There is also many things going on outside of the main storyline that need more background information. Why is there a war going on? How did the war start? What is the belief system of these countries? The origin story of the world is a pretty important part of the book, but the explanation is very vague.

I also didn't enjoy the characters and the romance. The romance was superficial and surface-level. I didn't understand why the two characters were "in love" when they had no connection. The characters lacked personality and growth. They stayed one-dimensional the entirety of the book. They felt more like character tropes rather than actual characters with real personalities.

 A big part of the book is figuring out who the assassin is and who the prince is. My guess was wrong, however, I felt that the personalities of the two love interests completely switched after the reveal. As if the author thought "Well I don't want the readers to be able to figure out who it is so I'm just going to switch the personalities to trip them up."

There's also too much "telling" in the story. The author tells the readers what is going on rather than showing them what happens. It takes away from the novel and is the main reason I felt no connection to this book. By just telling and not showing, the audience isn't able to feel anything and the romance falls flat.

The Kiss of Deception wasn't terrible. It was actually pretty fun to make fun of with my friends. It was a waste of my time though and I do wish I hadn't read it.

Happy reading!

Hana

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