Kingdom of Souls

Magnetic and addictive, Kingdom of Souls turns ambition into sacrifice and blood into power. Magic is always worth the price — and the pain — and this book is black girl magic at its finest.

It took me a bit, but I finally read Kingdom of Souls! I plan on catching up on all Rena Barron novels so I can be ready when the sequels come out.

One of the main reasons why I enjoyed this novel a lot was that Barron used the history of the Orisha throughout her novel. I personally have not seen many YA novels with Orisha in it, and I’m so glad that I got to experience this one. If you want to learn a bit more about who the Orisha are and all of the Orisha in the pantheon, you can take a look at this Wikipedia article. Of course, I hope you find a lot more resources to check out.

Arrah is our main character, who is the daughter of two magical people. Her mother is quite possibly on the most powerful people in her community, and she’s pretty intimidating to those that think otherwise. While Arrah’s relationship with her father is wholesome, it’s a lot more difficult to describe. At first glance, it seems like Ati either resents her daughter for not having magic like she does, or that she just doesn’t care about her. It actually made me really sad to see, and whenever Arrah would think about her mother and their relationship, I could understand why she didn’t know exactly where she stood with her mother.

I would say the first half of the novel starts with the children disappearances, and things get really bad when Arrah’s friend Kofi is one of them that ends up going missing. Arrah does what she can to find out what happened to them and how she can get them back. But then the second half is more about Arrah’s sister Efiya… which is definitely a whole different problem on its own.

I think I enjoyed the second plot line a lot more, especially because Arrah had to learn how to deal with her sister, and somehow save the world. Things get really intense as the book goes on, and if you’re not paying close attention, you can miss some things. I was listening to the audiobook – which I loved because the narrator really gave me something to envision as I was listening and driving – but I also feel like I’ll have to go back and read this physically. Possibly take some notes as well so I can have some reference for the sequel. I’m actually really curious to see how the sequel will go, and see how everything gets wrapped up in the last book.

Barron’s writing is beautiful. I really felt immersed in this world, in Arrah’s life with her friends and family, and her journey in trying to survive this world without any magic. I felt so much for Arrah, especially when she was feeling like her mother just completely hated her. There were some times where I felt like she got really emotional to the point that she didn’t make a logical decision, but hey I’m the exact same way. That’s something that I need to work on, so I don’t fault Arrah for that at all. She’s also a teenager, she’s allowed to make some wrong decisions every once in a while.

Oh, did I mention that Rudjek is so charming and dreamy? Ahhh I hope to see him more in the second novel. Actually all of Arrah’s friends tbh. That group was solid and powerful. And they knew how to joke around with one another even when things needed to get serious. That didn’t stop them from taking care of business, you know?

A girl with no magic of her own bargains for magic by giving up years of her life to save disappearing children.

I’ve been reading a lot of fantastic diverse fantasy this year, and I was hoping that Kingdom of Souls would follow in that same vein. The promise of a mythology inspired by African culture, the concept of witchdoctors, and particularly the idea of a young adult protagonist willingly giving up her years and youth for magic all seemed amazing. The kind of dark YA novel I’m always on the hunt for. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my expectations in almost any way, and all the hype I’ve seen surrounding this book has been so confusing.

The main character’s, Arrah, initial feelings and emotions set her up to be a relatable narrator. We can all relate to feeling like a disappointment in some way, and I imagine a lot of us relate this particular emotion to parental expectations. Arrah wants magic to feel connected to her world, as she can see the magic but not interact with it, and to her mother, for which magic is her entire life. I don’t feel like this is particularly unusual or original, but it is a YA novel, which does tend to focus around coming of age ideas, so I didn’t hold it against the novel until Arrah started making a lot of nonsensical choices.

Arrah makes bizarre choices and has confusing emotional reactions to things. I feel like everything is either an over- or under-reaction with her. It’s difficult to explain without spoiling parts of the book, but choices that would elicit a lot of emotional struggle from literally any normal person are just brushed aside, and on the other hand, moral issues with clear-cut resolutions are agonized over. It was honestly really confusing to get a grip on Arrah’s personality because she is so cutthroat one moment and so blasé about people’s lives the next. Some of her choices don’t really make sense. The initial problem, spoken about in the synopsis so I don’t think it’s a spoiler, to give up years of her life to find missing children, barely has anything to do with her. She is emotionally invested, but at that point in the novel, everyone else is as well and the problem is on its way to being solved. I saw the cover to one of the ARCs a while back, with the quote: “Grandmother said I will be a powerful witchdoctor one day. But I cannot wait that long.” I was really looking forward to all this quote implied: high stakes, impending disaster, or the solution to a problem resting on Arrah, and got none of that. I would’ve believed more a simple motivation, such as Arrah just becoming more ostracized from her family and society or just wanting what was supposed to be her family birthright. Her drama surrounding the situation just seems so unnecessary.

Following up on Arrah’s personality, all the other characters in this novel felt so underdeveloped. At one point in the novel, we are traveling with a group of eleven people all at once. It’s very hard to juggle that many people in a scene, and the vast majority of the characters only have scraps of personalities because the author never spends on any time on them. There were so many characters. They too were unnecessary. We really didn’t need to know Arrah’s entire household, the various sidekicks of her and her lover, and a bunch of seemingly random people, all of which were essentially irrelevant to the story. I wish the author had dedicated this time to fixing or rationalizing Arrah’s flip-flopping personality, or developing her love interest. He and Arrah were friends before the start of the novel, but the author seems to rely on their previous, off-page interactions for the romance, which was never developed or elaborated on in the text itself. Their relationship does get moderately more interesting towards the end of the novel, which was frustrating.

One of the things that drew me to this novel was the magic system and world, and that remains the only thing that kept me reading. I still love the dark tone of this novel, which seemed realistic for the high stakes the protagonists face without being too depressing. We didn’t really get to see a lot of the repercussions of Arrah trading her years for magic, so while the idea remains interesting, I hope it’s developed more. The ending suggests that the world and mythos of the world will be expanded on in the next novels, but with such a lackluster beginning, I don’t think I’ll be interested in reading.

Much thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me a digital copy of this book.

Set in a lushly drawn and fresh magical world, Kingdom of Souls was a wild, heart-wrenching ride. Every turn took me by surprise, and these unforgettable characters face a complex evil that threatens from both without and within. Readers won’t be able to put this one down.

Lush, captivating, and full of my favorite things: a vivid world, a cast of compelling characters, and a young heroine ready to rise and fearlessly fight for her beliefs. This powerful coming of age story lingers long after the final page.