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Series Review: The Suitable 'Verse by R. Cooper

Greetings and welcome to Reviews That Burn: Series Reviews, part of Books That Burn. Series Reviews discuss at least three books in a series and cover the overarching themes and development of the story across several books. Full Audio Here Powerful noble families known as the beat-of-fours, answerable only to a ruler and the mysterious, godlike fae, scheme and squabble amongst themselves, and go to war for the chance to put one of their own on the throne. But the fae might be pulling more strings than the nobles realize and they definitely have their favorites. A series of love stories loosely centered around the political crisis that led to the current ruler, featuring oblivious librarians, crafty though loving kings, an innocent half-fae noble, a legendary outlaw turned conqueror, worried warriors, clever guards, and an infamous beauty. PUBLISHER: Independently Published LENGTH: ~1000 pages so far AGE: Adult GENRE: Fantasy, Romance RECOMMENDED: Highly Queer Rep Summary: m/m and m/m/...
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The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons (A Chorus of Dragons, #1)

Kihrin is a bastard orphan who grew up on storybook tales of long-lost princes and grand quests. When he is claimed against his will as the long-lost son of a treasonous prince, Kihrin finds that being a long-lost prince isn't what the storybooks promised.

Far from living the dream, Kihrin finds himself practically a prisoner, at the mercy of his new family's power plays and ambitions. He also discovers that the storybooks have lied about a lot of other things things, too: dragons, demons, gods, prophecies, true love, and how the hero always wins.

Then again, maybe he’s not the hero, for Kihrin isn’t destined to save the empire.

He’s destined to destroy it . . .

TITLE: The Ruin of Kings
AUTHOR: Jenn Lyons
PUBLISHER: Tor Books
YEAR: 2019
LENGTH: 560 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Fantasy
RECOMMENDED: N/A

Queer Rep Summary: Not far enough to assess, the book is shelved as LQBTQ+.

*I received a review copy as part of the 2021 Hugo voters packet. 

DNF 12%.

I was having trouble following the story across points in time, as the narrators didn't feel different enough to be distinctive. The perspectives are labeled at the start of each chapter, but I felt adrift, bored, and uninterested. I did not like whatever character is writing the footnotes, I know the point is that the main narrator had different information from whoever is providing the commentary, but it felt like I was being jerked around since the main narrator would say one piece of information then the footnote narrator would immediately contradict them with yet more worldbuilding I didn't yet have the context to care about.

CW for slavery, body horror, blood, sexual assault (not depicted), gore (graphic), torture, death (graphic).

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