This book introduces a cool fantasy world with interesting characters. I like how everyone’s lives are slowly intertwined and the setting is expanded. It has a nice mix of world building through teaching the royal family’s history and showing us the different groups that live on this land now. The relationships between people and magic are very complicated, and there’s conflict going on in other areas which sets up believable stakes. The battles are happening in the background since they haven’t reached the country our main characters live in, so it’s just one part of the political climate we end up learning about.

We get two third person limited POVs and switch every couple chapters between Han and Raisa. Han is just trying to get by and take care of his family, but all these things start happening to and around him which makes that difficult. He’s scrappy and sympathetic, so I’m not trying to be mean to him, but he’s kinda stupid sometimes. He occasionally does things that don’t make sense and forgets stuff that’s kinda important, but it’s clearly a character trait rather than a writing flaw. Raisa is a good main character too because she’s strong willed, but she also makes questionable decisions due to her upbringing and lack of experience. She can tell her mother isn’t doing enough as queen, and she wants to be educated on the outside world, make her own decisions, and be a good leader. I respect that when she learned how poor some of the people in the queendom are, her first thought was “I will simply redistribute my wealth.” She’s a good mix of brave, naive, romantic, and capable. The author set these two up in a way that made me care about them and look forward to their future growth.

This is also a story about a bunch of 16 year olds that really wanna kiss each other. There’s a big focus on the romantic side plots in this but in a way I’m not used to seeing in YA. Usually, there’s one person the main character(s) like, and a love triangle is introduced, at the most. The main female character in this lets her mind wander a little more because she’s not in a relationship, so she freely thinks about what it would be like to kiss multiple people at different points. I thought that made sense with how it matched the culture they live in, their circumstances, and her personality. There’s still a small love triangle aspect to this, but both options are sort of forbidden, so she doesn’t seriously pursue them. And Han has a bit of a love triangle too, but it’s much more of a minor aspect of his story. I can feel the author’s experience with writing romance novels through this book even when that’s not the main point. She’s also good at making likable side characters and compelling villains.

The Demon King is mainly set up for the second book in the series. Even when I was mostly done with this book, I was wondering when the story was going to start. That sounds weird because things do happen, and characters make choices and teach us more about the world through their actions and conversations. There’s multiple side plots happening at once that overlap at random times. But I didn’t know what was gonna happen because the characters didn’t know what was going on, and it isn’t until 85% of the way through that things really pick up. It feels like a majority of this was an introduction to the world, characters, and some mysteries, but the plot progression is saved for the very end. We finally get explanations and reveals which catapult everyone into moving forward instead of just wondering how to make their situations better. I was waiting for a long time for the title to make sense and connect to current events, and it did a little, but it hasn’t been fully explored yet.

I like how wizards are viewed differently in this world depending on who you ask. The dynamics between the royals, wizards, and the people who keep wizards in check are well thought out. It’s a flawed political system that you can tell is being threatened, and the wizards play a big role in its history. The magic system and amulets are well integrated and complex too. I didn’t think they would range from necklaces that can make fire to rings that work like roofies, but they do.

I hope the next book focuses on grief a bit more since that’s one thing I thought was brushed over a bit in this one. Some pretty bad things happen, and the characters don’t have a big reaction to it for very long like I would’ve expected. The ending gives us a good foundation for The Exiled Queen, though. It makes me want to see them go to the different places they namedrop and figure out how to hone their skills. I think the rest of the series will be fun, and the following books will probably have more of an obvious overarching plot than this one.

The Demon King - Likewise Book Reviews

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