Kingsbane (Empirium: # 2)

Kingsbane by Claire Legrand
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book.
I really enjoyed this first book in this series and was very excited to read Book 2. I was disappointed, however, and almost did not finish it.
To begin with, I read the 1st book over a year ago. I still remembered much of what happened, but Kingsbane jumped right in with NO “review” catch-ups or quick backstory explanations or anything. I kept finding myself saying, “Now who was that?” or “Why is she mad?” or “What happened at that place?” or “Why do they not get along?” That really took me out of the flow of the story. So if you are planning on reading this series, you MUST binge-read it. And that will take you quite a while, because...
This book had waaaaay too much going on. It felt as though it could have been stream-lined quite a bit and that would have made the story tighter and more interesting. When I got to the end I was left wondering why several chapters had been included; they could have been left out and not affected the story at all.
The fact that so much was going on also contributed to the fact that this was a very long book. The reader knows that at some point Rielle is going to snap. But everything was dragged out sooooo much that when it did happen it didn’t even register much emotionally for me—I was just thinking, “Yay. Finally. Now maybe we can get somewhere.”
The alternating points-of-view and timelines really added to my enjoyment of the 1st book. But here in the second one I just found myself getting frustrated with the constant back-and-forth. I had to talk myself out of skipping chapters just to get consistent action. The author also threw in chapters from several other characters’ points-of-view, which seemed random to me as a reader, and a too-convenient plot device.
Also, the reader is very well aware that Rielle will suffer from a pretty major fall-from-grace, but even knowing that is coming doesn’t help excuse many of Rielle’s actions. She becomes more and more selfish, impulsive, volatile, and unpleasant. And it was hard for me to see her motivations, so she just seemed like a bad person. If her actions were more organic and less abrupt, it would have made her more sympathetic. In addition, Eliana begins to show behaviors that make her unlikable, as well. She has no loyalty, acts without thinking of the consequences, and seems very clueless. If she had shown more loyalty to Simon throughout the book, the big twist at the end would have had more impact for me.
All in all, this book had way too much going on, and not enough of substance. That, combined with characters who were just unlikable, caused me to not enjoy this book. I am not sure that I will read the last in the series.


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