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Suggestion of alternative title: I should have known better

It's an actual quote from the book too

And I think this sums up Emilia in Kingdom of the Wicked and all her assumptions, demands, and prejudices too well. Emilia's entitlement, know-it-all posture, stubbornness, and brash reactions didn't make her smart, complex, or badass only rushed, simple-minded, annoying, blind by choice, and reckless.

Her reasoning most of the time made zero sense. And everything was so EASY, she had clues falling from nowhere to help her, and she managed to get away without much of a scare most of the time when the situation was pretty dangerous and she had ignored precious advice or sensible logic...of course.

Facts and moments were "forgotten" or reinterpreted for the convenience of the plot in building more unnecessary drama or justifying Emilia's anger. (view spoiler)[Like at the end she felt betrayed because Wrath came to collect her soul, why? She knew since the beginning that he was helping Pride with the bride situation and also the delivery.

And she already knew that he needed to collect a soul to have his power back brushing it off as her expecting more of the "despicable" prince is nonsense, dude was doing what you knew a thousand times he was gonna do: his job or his end of a deal. He was just the representative, he didn't force you into anything. (hide spoiler)]

I mean the number of inconsistencies with what Emilia thought was happening versus what she said before or had been already shown as information in the book previously was alarming and quite contradictory.

Emilia had some reality checks through the book yet she still refused to learn or pay the minimum attention to common sense. She was pretty set in her: "Admitting I had much to learn felt like defeat" mentality. Which was both ridiculous and frustrating and I'm not even starting with the repetitive thoughts.

"We don't have enough information to speculate. And it's unwise to make assumptions without fact" Did she listen to Wrath? Nope. Did she fabricate weak and preposterous speculations the whole book? YAS!(view spoiler)[ "Wrath had certainly fooled me with his act. He made me think he was dead." WOMAN the world doesn't revolve around you and stop the "oh poor me", the princeling dude got all fucked up trying to protect you...it wasn't a damn act.

He was sent back to his realm because he was gutted from hip to hip, and Emilia assumed that he was dead even after he said he couldn't be killed easy, that a knife to the heart wouldn't end him and that she saw Lust being stabbed in the lung and not dying. Still, she convinced herself that the truth was that Wrath was dead just because for her he looked dead and didn't appear to some summoning after being hurt. Does this line of assumptions make any sense? (hide spoiler)]

I tried goddess knows I tried but I couldn't connect with Emilia, the funny thing was that at the beginning of the book I thought I would love her. Really, girl...you gave my eyeballs some work from all the times you made me roll my eyes through this book.

I probably don't mix well with Maniscalco heroines, Audrey drove me mad in Escaping from Houdini but at least Audrey was smart in her logic to solve the mysteries and didn't infuriate me since book one.

The only thing that made me give this book two stars was Wrath. I loved him although I think he could be better developed and I expected more "everything" from the war demon (at least more fury), yet I liked his sassiness, his broodiness, and that gentleness that was in the little things. He saved the book for me because he was the only real reason for entertainment.

As for the plot, I think it was very confusing and had holes (view spoiler)[Is the daughter of La Prima the same wife of Pride that was killed...after? I still don't understand the curse or this wife's debacle. Also if Pride was cursed since he got involved with La Prima's daughter why did his powers only dampen later? I gathered that maybe there are two different times but both times talk about the curse: the one that La Prima removed her daughter power and the one that Pride's beloved wife was murdered...so when did the curse happen or there is more than one curse? See the level of puzzlement (hide spoiler)]

The wordbuilding was lacking, the food aspect became too much, it didn't feel like a true revenge story, most plot twists were effortless, the "feminism" in the book seemed forced, clueless and half-hearted, and the magic system wasn't established verging on unclear and shallow explications. Yeah I know it's a mess.

Also, the rules about the demon world seemed to change every time it was suitable for the narrative, the demon princes didn't look like the biggest threats or all that powerful and were undermined by a witch that didn't have any clue of what she was doing and other lesser demons.

I know the author wanted to show how incredible Emilia was when she tricked the princes but this would also make them appear less time and time again...since she didn't have to strive to best them and she wasn't skilled. Just think about the Viperidae scene.

I couldn't understand the author's reasoning in Emilia "hating" Wrath so much and saying things like "So I sat there, beside the drying blood of my worst enemy, and wept" or "He was the most wicked of the Malgavi" when the only thing the dude did was defend her and get hurt because of it in the first case and be somewhat cold and distant in the second. Melodramatic much?

Since she didn't even believe in the Wicked until she saw one, how can she loath so much someone she taught was a legend two seconds ago? It wasn't like she was harboring deep believes of despise for years, most of the time she ignored the stories and treated them as the boogeyman of witches. (view spoiler)[ She also knows he didn't kill her sister since their first meeting, which was the only thing that would explain such hate. (hide spoiler)]

I can only conclude that the author tried to force Wrath into the role of villain in Emilia's mind and attempted to push the "we hate each other" banter so much that it backfired and made me antagonize Emilia and not understand why Wrath would even consider her as a romantic interest.

In addition, I have to say that Emilia was all bark and no real bite. For starters, there was a lot of telling that Emilia got "dark" but no showing what worried and frustrated me, we must see her descent to the "dark side" for it to feel genuine. When you show instead of telling...you end up creating powerful scenes and accomplishing a more palpable context of grief, pain, and rage for the character.

In truth, Emilia was only really terrible with poor Wrath 😂 and that was maddening. I saw a lot of promises of an atmosphere of darkness and big speeches of revenge that in the finish line were only deceiving, tame and a tantrum. Emilia clearly has the self-importance of someone who sees herself as queen of darkness, while she is just a downgraded version of a pretentious menace.

In the scene that was the "climax" of discovering the murderer, she couldn't be more disappointing (view spoiler)[ "I lifted my arm, then slashed down in an arc. Invisible claws cut Antonio's robes to ribbons. This time I spared his flesh." She not only spared his flash other times as she spared his life, and spared him even of a curse because of some illogical version of mercy.

And she wasn't finished with irrationality, she vowed again that she wouldn't rest until all the responsible for her sister's death met their end...she will never rest at this rate since she just found the first killer who confessed it and her VENGEFUL act was to cut his clothes, give him a scratch - call it an eye for an eye (LMAO) and not provide even a little curse because he peed himself...how dark and vindictive indeed.

She even let him become her assistant in summoning the devil, the same guy who is both evil laugh and begging piss in two minutes, and she will keep him alive for her to do what she wants with him what will probably consist of a lot of promises of intimidation without any violent follow-up. (hide spoiler)]

Thinking about the book as a whole - Kingdom of the Wicked felt hurried and stretched at the same time. The author exaggerated the darkness factor, epic vibe and the love x hate trope so much that it felt superficial and the characters lost more credibility as somewhat believable. For as much as the concept of the book was interesting, the execution failed hard.