Kingsbane - A "Young Adult" Fantasy Novel

*This Review Contains Spoilers*

- Read More Book Reviews and Follow My Goodreads Account: Maggie Rhoads -

One out of Five Stars

Kingsbane, by Claire Legrand, is the second book in the Trilogy Emporium. Since it is the second novel, the first one, Furyborn, concluded with Eliana discovering she is the Sun Queen and Rielle coronated the Sun Queen. Also, we discovered two Queens, Blood, and a Sun will rise together, which I found interesting because both perspectives took place a thousand years apart. I never read fantasy, but the main reason why I chose to read this book was due to the historical fact. Anyway, near the end of the first novel, I was not enjoying it. The possibility of these two Queens uniting was not possible. They were thousands of years apart, but we soon found out Rielle was Eliana's mother. Again, I was not planning on reading Kingsbane, but I felt I needed to know what happened. I also met Legrand and had Kingsbane signed, I'll get back to our encounter later, so I thought I needed to be respectful and read it anyway. 

Kingsbane took me by surprise. I had high expectations for this novel, and it was not exactly what I expected. Again, this novel is two perspectives, but Legrand decided to add in more every once in a while, which made the book feel inconsistent. However, the main focus was on Rielle and Eliana. A lot of what happened was very confusing, but the main event was Eliana goes through time with the help of Simon, her mentor, and meets Rielle in the woods with Corien, an angel that wants Rielle's hand in marriage. After when Eliana goes back to her time is when the important events happened. Eliana goes to a party where they start to fight (again this novel was confusing), and she eventually gets kidnapped a boat with her brother, Remy, where she is kidnapped by her father, who was mentioned briefly in the first novel, and Simon. Rielle ends up marrying Audric, her boyfriend, because she is now pregnant with Eliana. 

I understand this book seems fine, but the way it's marketed and the ungodly amount of unnecessary sex scenes bothered me.

There were a lot of other characters in this novel, but most of them are for sex. Keep in mind Eliana and Rielle were in relationships. Also, it was not like it was one kiss and leave the rest up for assumption, no it was what like some like to call smut. In the first novel, Furyborn, there were three sex scenes; two of them included essential plot points. However, Kingsbane was not the same. One night, I read about eighty pages and stopped after my third sex scene. The problem was because Furyborn's sex scenes included plot points and character development; I felt obligated to read them. I didn't want to skip twenty pages and find myself more confused. Also, one of the sex scenes was a straight-up rape scene that "supposedly" helped the plot. Most of the time, I felt like Legrand was writing sex scenes just to write sex scenes, which was annoying. However, there was something that bothered me more. 

I mentioned earlier I met Legrand. I met her back in October and at a young adult book convention. However, there were many middle school groups there, which is fine. I believe that young adult novels are PG-13, but this book must have been rated R due to the sex and rape scenes. I feel it is not right to market your books as a young adult when it is truly a book written for adult viewing. I understand young adult books are for young adults, but Divergent is a young adult novel where there are middle schoolers who have written Wattpad fanfictions.

Will I read the next book, Lightbringer, I do not know yet. Also, I would like to end saying if Legrand did not add these sex and rape scenes, I would have rated it three stars.

4/16 EDIT: I was scrolling through Goodreads when I clicked on the Young Adult section, Goodreads says this: "Young-adult fiction (often abbreviated as YA) is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 13 to 18."

- Read More Book Reviews and Follow my Goodreads Account: Maggie Rhoads -