Holly (Holly Hearts Books)'s Reviews > The Ruin of Kings

Have you ever been to denial town? Currently visiting and it sucks....

The Ruin of Kings has been on my radar ever since it was announced in 2018 being compared to Joe Abercrombie (one of my favorite authors), Patrick Rothfuss, and Brandon Sanderson. It sounded so good - a heavy dose of epic fantasy with all the usual nastiness and morally-grey characters. But I could not connect with a single character or event in this book no matter what I did. The convoluted storytelling DID NOT HELP. In Fact I skimmed the last half of this as fast as I could....

I'm sure the right sort of reader will eat this up and add it to their favorites list. It does seem to be garnering a lot of positive attention. At least the publisher is making it seem like that with those heavy words "Prepare to meet the genre's next star."

Page 1 begins with an ominous scene. We’re introduced to a boy named Kirian as he is in a jail cell with a “demon” named Talon who is leaning on the outside bars begging for a story to be told on how he got there.

And so he begins.

And so does she.

That’s right. We are forced to follow not one but two different perspectives of the same story being told. We have two narrations here! There’s Kihrins 1st person perspective talking about his recent events and then there’s Talons 3rd person perspective talking about what happened before the events he’s telling.. uhhhh. So yes, Talons chapters aren't about her. They're also about Kihrin.. in 3rd person.. but his name is Rook..

Which would have been incredibly unique and interesting but I found it to be confusing and hard to follow. OH YEAH! There’s also footnotes throughout the whole book...

Not like I don’t enjoy a complex story, I freaking do! Like give me all the complexity! But with the writing style, body swapping (where characters are actually not the characters you think they are) and the 10 page glossary in the back of the book of smash-your-face-on-keyboard names (including multiple nicknames for multiple characters) made up slangs for gangs, and kingdoms and faraway lands. This quickly became a chore. Adding insult to injury, I found the the main character Kihrin very unlikeable and did not enjoy reading the story he wanted to tell.

I think if we had a linear plot line, it would have been much more enjoyable. It's so frustrating that its convoluted because there is a wonderful story and world that's sort of obstructed by the time and perspective jumps. The world building is beautiful and the rich history/cultures were *insert grabby hands*

But all in all, I am left in a puddle of disappointment. Like I said, I skimmed the fork out of the last half of this book. I was over it but I feel like I have a good mindset on my rating.