Despite my initial reservations, I quite liked the majority of this book. It had a promising start, captured my interest early on, and got me fully invested much sooner than expected. Vuk and Ayana’s relationship was also much sweeter than expected. I liked them a lot. But the first half and the second felt like two separate books, and around 70%, I started losing steam. It felt like Ana was slowly losing her own plot; a bit further and she’d lost it entirely.

I’ve said in hindsight that Twisted Games felt too light and fluffy compared to the rest of its series. Now, on the other hand, King of Envy feels too heavy. It doesn’t fit with its predecessors in the slightest. These books would fit in better if they swapped series.

And speaking of Twisted—I got increasingly strong Stella and Christian vibes from Ayana and Vuk, and then the last 20% felt like Twisted Lies all over again, but far too convoluted. The more I think about it, the more the whole book feels that way. Sweet, sheltered model falls for big, intimidating morally grey man who’s been secretly obsessed with her for ages.

They fall in love, he protects her from the malicious forces at play, she eventually discovers the darker side of him and is horrified by it, so they split. She gets kidnapped, he goes into a rage because someone dared touch her but eventually saves the day, and they live happily ever after.

And it’s not even a contest—Twisted Lies did it a million times better.

Additionally, this felt so incredibly disjointed. Not only for the reasons above, but also because it’s the first in the series following a female lead outside of the close-knit group of the previous four books. And quite honestly, it was awful. We barely saw any of the previous leads, male or female. It felt less like passing the torch and more like they simply didn’t matter anymore. Like Ana forgot about them. As someone incredibly attached to (most of) them, it was a low blow. It was really lonely, too. Ayana very clearly had no close friends, no besties to gossip or hang out with, and Vuk hated everyone except her and Jordan. We went from four books of intimate friendship and snarky banter to an isolation chamber, and I could feel the difference. The warmth of the previous books was gone.

Which, given that Ayana knows Alé through her mom and literally has Sloane as a publicist, is especially sad. That’s two ways she easily could’ve been incorporated into the friend circle—valid ways, too, not just my own wishful thinking—but it never happened. And you can’t tell me Viv, Isa and Sloane wouldn’t, because they already have once before. They did it with Alé, and all four of them would be open to doing it again. My visions of all seven female leads being the most iconic, badass high society girl squad have crumbled around me.

Add that to the fact that

Alé announced her pregnancy

at the end of King of Greed but we still have yet to see any mention of

the baby

, and

Kai and Isa’s wedding

was reduced to a single, irrelevant sentence at the end of King of Sloth (😭😭😭) and it’s even worse. At this point, I half expect the lot of them to not be in the last two books at all.

Having written all of that out, I feel like I should lower my rating. But I gave Greed four stars, and I see them as being roughly on the same page. I liked Alé more than Ayana, but Vuk more than Dom. Envy has a better romance, but Greed did better staying in its lane as a romance. I found Envy (mostly) more palatable (because Dom was insufferable in his book), but Greed made me happier with its quality whole group content. That library scene still lives rent-free in my head, and it’s yet to stop being hilarious. (I did also have fun with the majority of this book, and a lower rating feels like it discounts that. It might not make sense to anyone else, but it makes sense to me.)

With all of that said, the last thing I want to say is about the next book. I predicted

Maya

being the FMC as soon as she was introduced, and

Sebastian

being the MMC as soon as she started trash-talking him. As much as I already love her, I find him insufferable, and it’s ruined my excitement for the book as a whole. At this point in time, I don’t even want it. I just want to reread the books actually featuring my favorite characters.

I guess we’ll see what happens.

Updated series ranking:

Representation: