REVIEW: The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

I have received an Advance Reader's Copy of this book through the publisher. This has not affected my rating or review in any way.

Thank you to Random House for sending me an Advance Reader’s Copy of The Bridge Kingdom!

Danielle L. Jensen's The Bridge Kingdom follows the last living princess of Maridrina, Lara, as she is arranged to marry the elusive king of Ithicana, Aren. However, from a very young age Lara has been training under her cruel father the king to become a warrior and spy for her kingdom. With her true mission to take down Ithicana from the inside to help prosper Maridrina, Lara doesn't expect to begin falling for her arranged husband and learn new truths about her kingdom that cause her to question everything she's ever known.

In theory, I should've loved The Bridge Kingdom. All of the tropes I love are present; there's an arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, and political intrigue. Plus, the main character is a spy, and I love an espionage story. This truly should've been right up my alley.

In reality, this was just so... meh.

For an adult novel, the writing was very young adult--bordering on teen. I understand that this Danielle L. Jensen's debut, but I was expecting a much stronger story for what was advertised. Instead, this book was just a lot of political plotting and planning and more plotting and planning and then talking about plotting and planning. Nothing ever truly happened until about the second-to-last chapter. This, unfortunately, made for a very boring reading experience.

On top of that, for being a trained assassin, Lara instead felt like such a spoiled teenager. Her actions throughout the book constantly swung back and forth between this calculated badass spy and whiny irritating princess, which was really annoying to read about. Aren, on the other hand, was basically Bland Main Male Character #412. Nothing about him was intriguing or compelling, and at times he felt like an immature teenager as well. I guess you could say those two are a perfect match, then?

Despite this, the story ended on an intriguing note. I'll possibly pick up the next one, but I'm in no rush. I give The Bridge Kingdom 3 out of 5 stars.

The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen will be available on October 15th, 2024.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Disappearance of Mekayla Bali

Image
Every person interested in true crime has that one case that sticks with them. The one case that keeps them awake at three in the morning, the one case that boggles the mind. For me, that case is the disappearance of Canadian teen Mekayla Bali. Why? Well, there’s so much coverage of her last movements before her disappearance, and yet no one knows where she is- or if she’s still alive. So, who is Mekayla Bali? Mekayla Margaret Kim Bali (formerly Niebergall) is a Canadian teenager from Yorkton, Saskatchewan. She lived with her mother, Paula, her two siblings, Joshua and Eliyora, and aunt, Rhonda. She had interests such as The Hunger Games and video games like League of Legends. She enjoyed playing the violin and accordion, and nature photography. She wanted to go into a career working with children or animals. She was just a normal teenage girl… However, there may have been something darker going on behind the scenes. Bali had multiple Facebook and Instagram accounts, including an Inst...
Read more

What Went Wrong with Chibnall’s Era of Doctor Who

Image
Whether you like it or not, the critics and fans reviews don’t lie. The past five years were the most subpar of modern Doctor Who history- and it wasn’t because of casting a female Doctor (NMDs DNI!). It was an amalgamation of missteps and mistakes, all of which left the show lacking. Today, I have compiled a list of what I think dragged the show down throughout Chris Chibnall’s era of Who. The Writing Call it intuition, but I said that Chris Chibnall was the wrong choice for showrunner back when it was announced in 2017. I never had a good experience with his episodes (particularly The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood, two of which I consider to be the worst episodes of Doctor Who), and always thought that he just couldn’t write the characters properly.  Turns out, I was right. What Chibnall proved in his five years of writing for Doctor Who is that where his writing struggles is with his plot, dialogue, and primary characters. Even he himself has stated that he didn’t like the turnout...
Read more

REVIEW: Doctor Who: Series Fifteen

Image
This review contains spoilers. Read at your own risk. A beautiful yet disappointing end to an era. What started out as a collection of some of the best episodes of Doctor Who as a whole turned out to be one giant, meaningless waste. At the beginning of this series, I had so much hope and love for this show. Now all I feel is sadness, confusion, and uncertainty (and a little bit of shame). For me, the series started out great. The Robot Revolution , while somewhat campy, was a good episode to ease the viewer in. Lux was a fun romp that continues with the Pantheon of the Gods storyline, and The Well took one of my favorite episodes and continued it as an indirect sequel without ruining the source material. Lucky Day , in my opinion, was a better Doctor-lite episode than the previous series'  73 Yards  and gave a good insight to what was going on with Ruby Sunday and UNIT back on Earth. The Story and the Engine was a masterful exploration of culture and mythology, and The Inte...
Read more