“She would rather become a legend on her own”
– Amanda Foody
Release Date: April 30, 2019
Thank you to Harlequin TEEN and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel!
I started writing my review around 30% into the book because I believed that for the first time in my life I was going to DNF a book. It started off so slow and Levi was driving me insane with how selfish he was being. I pushed through and I’m actually glad I did. Like Ace of Shades this book really picked up the last 30%-40% of the book and I couldn’t put it down!
Two words: Girl Gang. I am all for girl power and these girls were definitely formidable opponents in the street war. They had brains, beauty and the skills to help slip into high society and the political atmosphere while also being able to hold their own with the other gangs. They were my favorite part about this book and if it weren’t for them Levi wouldn’t be able to pull off his crazy schemes. The girls were an excellent addition to the streets.
The side characters were amazing. We got so many new characters in King of Fools, all of whom were intriguing and really added to the story. Grace, Sophia, Lola, Narinder, and Tock made for an interesting cast, but I wish I knew more about their pasts and how they got to be who they are in New Reynes. We know bits and pieces about them but I’m hoping they’ll get fleshed out more in the next book.
It was so nice to get Jacs’ point of view! He intrigued me in the first book, but was forgotten a lot of the time so it was nice to see him front and center here. Watching his friendships with some of the other side characters grow into healthy relationships was a nice change from his somewhat toxic friendship with Levi.
Levi drove me insane. I wanted to skip almost every single one of his chapters/sections. While has always had the tendency to be selfish, his redeeming quality was that he cared about his friends, like Jac and Enne, and was willing to do whatever it took to help them out. Well he lost that quality and instead decided to only care about himself and the street legend he wished to be. He puts Jac in blatant danger to his health right off the bat which pissed me off. Jac has always been a good friend to him and loves him for helping him beat his drug addiction, but even he was ticked off at Levi’s plan. And don’t even get me started about his relationship with Enne. I thought he actually cared about her and wanted to help her, but he immediately put her aside for a new relationship and never really thought twice about how his plans affected her and the plans she had. Just when he seemed to get back on track though the end of the book arrived and he was right back to being selfish again.
The made-up curse words finally got to me. I’d seen complaints in other reviews about this, but I never really noticed it much until this book where “muck” appeared on almost every page. This is supposed to be “Sin City” with a bunch of illegal activity going on, so I bet they actually cuss versus clean-cussing. It was a tad funny/annoying when a character would say “muck” and the people around them about treat it like it was the worst thing to ever come out of someone’s mouth. Give me the real words or not at all.
Just when I thought I had the talent system all worked out and finally knew what A “Mizer” was/did there some more lingo thrown at me that wasn’t really explained. An example would be “Mystery” talents or something like that which seemed important to the political aspect of the story but was never really thoroughly explained.
The ending was insane. Foody knows how to captivate my attention at the end of her books to leave me wanting to read the next one. I’m interested to see how they dynamic between Jack-Enne-Levi will go and what new challenges the political atmosphere might bring.
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