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Kingdom of the Cursed by Kerri Maniscalco
1.0

Let me preface this with two important facts:
1. I do not like to read smut, generally. It's not something I enjoy. I especially do not enjoy it in fantasy settings like this.
2. I was not aware this had gone from YA to NA when I put it on hold, and strangely enough, when I see it listed here, it still says it's YA.


Okay, disclaimers are out of the way.
Something important about smut, for me, is consent. If there isn't an explicit level of consent involved, I'm uncomfortable. Everyone seems to bury their comments about chapter 17 in their reviews under all the praise, so let me make it very clear here:
In chapter 17, Wrath "magically" (or whatever) forces Emilia to perform humiliating and often sexual acts, and it is forgiven and brushed off because it wasn't "as bad" as his brothers could have been. This is not consensual. This is not okay. This is sexual assault. And this makes the love interest feel off for me.

No, I'm not marking that as a spoiler. You should know about it before you read it and before you read all these glowing reviews. With that being said, if you want to read a story with a lot of smut, and a lot of foreplay, and weirdly - not a lot of actual sex? Go ahead and read this book! If you want a book with plot and character development? This isn't it. Ask a friend to summarize the details for you because it can be completed in about three sentences. Three sentences of plot explanation cover the entire 15 hours audiobook.

also, if you're going to give me enemies to lovers, especially with demons (and trust me babes, I go hard for demon books), don't make the only brutal thing he does be sexual assault of his love interest. To "train" her. Wrath is about as scary and threatening as my miniature schnoodle. Also, Emilia could use a thesaurus or I don't know, thoughts that vary beyond "wrath betrayed me" and "oh but wrath is hot."

High key a waste of time, and I'm really glad I was warned by a friend to lower my expectations.