Mariana ✨'s Reviews > Kingdom of Without

I don’t have much to say about this book. I think this is one of those “it’s not the book, it’s me” cases. The story was fine, and I don’t have many negative things to say about it. It unfortunately just never managed to fully grab my attention, for some reason, so by the end I was honestly dreading picking this up. I’d still recommend it, though, if it sounds interesting to you! It just simply was a miss for me.


WORLD: The world building was a bit clunky at times (like that info-dump about the Lark at the beginning), but, in general, it was fine, and I actually really liked the world! I feel like there aren’t a lot of cyberpunk settings in books, especially YA, and I do think it’s an underutilized type of world. It’s interesting to see a world that’s so technologically advanced, but where poor people still have to sell body parts to survive. Finding out what those body parts were used for was also interesting, though I would’ve liked to see more of it, tbh. I just think this type of world is so cool that I wanted to learn more about it, I guess. 😅


PLOT: On paper, the plot was quite interesting: a poor girl joining a group of rebels (secretly lead by one of the most influential young elites in the empire, who’s betraying the emperor) to break out the girl who was the face of a revolution before she was imprisoned?! That sounds so awesome! I love me a good heist story! But unfortunately, I just never fully cared about what they were trying to accomplish, and I never felt any urgency. All their little “side quests” before the big heist were boring to me (and, to be fair, since the heist is near the end of the book, I also found it boring, since by that point I was already done with this book 😵‍💫). I can’t fully explain *what* didn’t work for me, I just know that it didn’t. 🫠 There were a couple of things I enjoyed, though!
(view spoiler)[➤ I really liked that, after being rescued, the Lark just ran away, since she didn’t want anything to do with that revolution anymore. I found that very interesting, and I’d love to know more about this character!
➤ In general, I thought the things they found in the laboratory, and Cheng Yun betraying the empire he was working for, but still trying to take accountability for what he’d done as the Young Marshal was all very interesting. And the open ending was cool, and also bold of the author! (hide spoiler)]


CHARACTERS:
➤ Ning’er was a strong and smart protagonist. I liked seeing how she survived being poor, how she dealt with her father’s mistreatment of her, her previous addiction and her prosthetic limbs.
➤ I liked Cheng Yun in theory more than in practice. As I already mentioned, the idea of the Young Marshal being the prodigy of the nation, but also, secretly, its biggest enemy, was cool as hell, and I immediately wanted to know how that came to be, and what he planned on doing onwards. Additionally, Cheng Yun was really selfless and kind, which is rare in YA LIs, since authors nowadays are obsessed with the ~dark, brooding, rude, cocky~ LIs. So, truly, there were a lot of reasons for me to love him! But, unfortunately, I just never fully warmed up to him, and I didn’t really care about him at all by the end. 😕
➤ The SCs were cool, but I also never managed to fully care about them. I can tell they have different personalities and aptitudes, but I don’t think they were on page enough for me to fully know them as people, or for me to care at all about them. I’ll forget about them in a week (sorry 😭).


ROMANCE: This is the one thing about the book I actually didn’t like (granted, I didn’t hate it either! It just made me roll my eyes a lot lol). Right at the beginning Ning’er spent a long amount of time looking at a poster of the Young Marshal and describing how hot he is, which immediately told me he was gonna be the LI, even though his character hadn’t been introduced in the book yet. She then spent the entire book regularly describing Cheng Yun’s ~full lips~, ~sharp cheekbones~, ~long lashes~, ~big eyes~, ~gorgeous face~ and I was like……….. 😑🙄 She was also immediately flustered around him, even though she barely knew him and only talked to him like twice, which to me is just insta-love. And then Ning’er would say things like “But, god, she’d do anything to keep him from looking so sad again.”….. like….. why???? He’s basically a stranger!!!! 😑😑😑 I also didn’t really care about their bonding moments. The whole *rich boy and poor girl bonding because neither of them has “freedom”* thing is too overdone. Also when she said "Ning’er couldn’t honestly say who’d be worse starved for affection: the hungry orphans of the Lower Rings or the second son of an Upper Ring family, haunted by a ghost who’d left him alone in their father’s big empty house.” ????????????????? Girl??? Let’s not compare a lonely rich guy to hungry orphans in the poorest part of the city 😭😭😭. Then *obviously* they’re in a situation where ~there’s only 1 bed~ which….. 🥱 And Ning’er says “I promise not to grope you in my sleep so long as you don’t grope me.” which is just bizarre, methinks. 🤨 It was all very weird, for 2 people who barely knew each other! At some point, one of the SCs says “You’ve known him for all of twelve seconds.”, and this was supposed to be a petty, snarky comment, but like…. She wasn’t wrong lmfao. 🥴


OTHER THINGS:
➤ The fact that they fully discussed their plan to commit treason, break into a prison and break out a criminal IN PUBLIC!?!?!! MULTIPLE TIMES!!?!?!?!!!!?! And you’re telling me these kids are smart?? Bye 🥴. How weren’t they caught???? 😭
➤ Found typos
➤ I liked this quote: “Not all tragedies are vehicles for beautiful life lessons or poignant inner meaning. (…) Sometimes, they just happen to you. Sometimes, they just break your heart.”