The Kingdom of Liars Review

E-ARC, 596 Pages
Adult/ Fantasy
By: Nick Martell
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟

“We’re all selfish monsters— the only difference is some of us are more honest about it than others.”

I think my review will be short, My friend Chan wrote a review that perfectly sums up my thoughts and feelings about this book and I think she did it better than I can so feel free to check it out here.

Sometimes I am drawn to a book because of the nice cover, sometimes the synopsis and rarely by the blurb. This book had all 3 elements and a blurb by Sanderson certainly pushed it up on my tbr. I think I had high expectations which made the whole experience underwhelming. I am nit saying it is a bad book but I simply wanted more.

The characters were okay and I already forgot most of them to be honest. I thought the Michael was a tortured soul who made poor decisions and was blinded by his desire to take revenge. I can understand him and sympathize with him but at the same time, I wanted him to be more rational and to like him more. I may have ended up liking his development toward the end but overall the characterization was not the strongest element in the story.

The world-building was very basic compared to what I had in mind and we only got glimpses of the world. My guess is that it will be expanded in the future books but I wanted an epic magical system, I wanted the moon on the cover to have a bigger role, I wanted a world that stays with me and as I said above, my expectations and the reality collided in a not very good way.

The last thing that I thought would be different is the plot, I expected more action, more magic, more drama but it turned out to be more on the mystery side and with a focus on the characterization which is fair enough for a debut!

“A name does not make the man, just like a lie does not tell the full story.”

Summary: I take most of the blame for liking this less than expected owing to my skyrocket expectations of this debut. I guess all the elements were okay to good but I wanted more from such a hyped debut. At this point and honestly, I forgot most of the details and I am not sure if I am continuing the series. I will do what we call watchful waiting in medicine, where I will see what other readers think of the series before taking my final decision.