The Kiss of Deception

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

This book has solid world-building and interesting mythology, written so nicely that it's easy to fall into the world and get yourself immersed in it. The thing is I have way too many issues with it that I couldn't enjoy the story entirely.

First is the main character, Lia. She might be cool for some people due to her sass and spunk, but most of the time I just find her rude, immature, haughty, and ignorant. She really annoys me to the extent that I wanted to throw my phone away because of the way she acts. She runs away from her responsibility, fully knowing that she's screwing everyone over and not feeling any remorse until it eventually comes back to hit her in the face. However, she does show some growth and becomes somewhat more likeable towards the end.

Next is the pacing. While the plot itself is okay, the pacing is so awful that I was falling asleep trying to finish this book. For the first 60% of the story, Lia spends her time playing maid in a tavern. It's dragged out for so long that the plot isn't going anywhere, and I was so happy when the book finally showed some progress with the story... except that it stalls again for about 30% of the remaining 40%. It's like the book simply moves to a different point, but nothing much beyond that. It still drags out the plot, just at a different location.

Due to the pacing, I feel like the book lost its focus on the main issue it's trying to convey—like Lia's power and the “prophecy” she found. By the time it gets to that, I was so bored beyond my wits that I couldn't care less about the gradual reveal anymore—I just wanted the story to get somewhere. As if that's not enough, it ended at a dreadful cliffhanger. Just when the story was about to unravel. I couldn't help but feel like I wasted my time reading a dragged out build-up and nothing more.

I like how the author conceals the identity of the assassin and the prince, though. At the beginning, you can't tell which one is which and it was fun trying to pin down their identity. There are multiple parts in the book that were clearly written to throw you off, and it was done in a brilliant way.

Also, I picked up this book because I heard there's sex in it. It made me curious because there's only a few fantasy YA series that has sex scenes right from the first book, but... As I promised Owen, I'll just paste some of my tweets here:

“The banging was so vague it didn't make up for the snorefest.”

“But who doesn't appreciate good boning scenes in YA novels? 8)”