Wicked as You Wish

De: Rin Chupeco

Narrado por: Cassie Simone

Many years ago, the magical kingdom of Avalon was left desolate and encased in ice when the evil Snow Queen waged war on the powerful country. Its former citizens are now refugees in a world mostly devoid of magic - which is why the crown prince and his protectors are stuck in...Arizona.

Prince Alexei, the sole survivor of the Avalon royal family, is in hiding in a town so lame that magic doesn't even work there. Few know his secret identity, but his friend Tala is one of them. Tala doesn't mind - she has secrets of her own - namely, that she's a spell breaker, someone who negates magic. But hope for their abandoned homeland reignites when a famous creature of legend, and Avalon's most powerful weapon, the Firebird, appears for the first time in decades.

Alex and Tala unite with a ragtag group of new friends to journey back to Avalon for a showdown that will change the world as they know it.

©2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Fantastical!

This is fantasy reaching into your childhood core and twisting it into your growing into an adult soul. It is beautiful, quirky, and just wonderful! The characters are relatable yet admirable and the fastest lands are just amazing! I can not wait for the next book!

Wonderful

I can not wait for the next book! Such a thrilling adventure! Absolutely loved it

Interesting world, plot could be better.

This is YA fiction, and if you know that going in, it is a fun read/listen. The setting/world is interesting, but the overall story line (at least in this book so far) is not groundbreaking or anything. Overall, the world building is okay, barring the inexplicable abundance of Carly Rae Jepsen. It was jarring every time it came up, like running into C3PO in Mordor. Also, the subject of sexual orientation could be covered a little more subtly, but that's arguable at best. Parts of the story and dialogue are annoying and cringe, but it makes sense given the characters are all adolescents.

The interactions between characters in the main cast were kind of predictable and largely ineffectual to the plot. There's not as much character development in this book, rather the readers are discovering the characters. I hope the next books, assuming most of the characters will stay, shows the main cast change and grow. Speaking of next book, the last third of the book does a lot of foreshadowing for where the story may be going next.

The narration was fine in general, buy difference in characters wasn't always obvious. With so many different characters taking up sizable amounts of screen time, the voices sometimes bleed over and it is hard to tell who was saying the lines.

Writing is fantastic, story not so much

I bought this because I’m a big fan of Rin Chupeco’s other works, particularly The Bone Witch Series. She is undoubtedly a talented writer and I love the advanced vocabulary she uses. The narrator was really good, though not the best at distinguishing the many voices. I really loved how she read the battle scenes in particular and her english accents. I also loved that this was told in third person perspective vs. first. It is mostly told from Tala’s POV and I found her to be a very strong, likable character.

(Spoilers) I found the combination of our world with Avalon’s to be extremely cringe, particularly the absurd vilification of ICE agents in America. I found this to be especially distasteful as we are currently in the midst of the worst border crisis ever. I had to put that out of my mind to continue reading this story, I just pretended the ICE agents were magical gatekeepers. That aside, the constant references to real places and ppl of the globe vs. magical ones I found to be very clumsy and uninteresting. I prefer Chupeco’s world building when it is a completely fictitious place. Much easier to immerse in that.

I also found most of the supporting characters to be boring or unnecessary. I loved Tala and her parents, I wish they could have been more of a focus. Alex seemed like he was going to be central but gets lost in the mess of other supporting characters. I honestly found Zoey and Cole to be more interesting than any of them but they only shared one perspective together. It is not even clear if Zoey knows Tristan is bi or gay and if she’s angry or shocked about it if so. Perhaps it will be clarified later in the series.

I loved the firebird, Ryker and the snow queen. The backstory with the snow queen and Kay is super freaking amazing but we are given just a trickle of this before we delve into the much less interesting characters. Alex’s frog curse was interesting but I still don’t think I grasped his motives in the end bc a pin was essentially put in his character development while we focused on Loki, Wes and Ken, three characters who add nothing to the story imo.

I don’t like the borrowing of other fairytales and names, it just made things confusing and sloppy. I wish the story had focused on Tala, Alex and her family with the snow queen. My fav voice the narrator did was for the snow queen.

Overall, it’s def worth the read if you’re a fan of fantasy and Chupeco’s writing. The writing is absolutely amazing, very descriptive and poetic but this plot was nowhere on par with her other series imo. I will still give this series a chance but may take a break for now.

couldn’t get into it

I had a difficult time getting into the story. I enjoyed the Bone witch trilogy a lot and was really hoping to enjoy this also. But it didn't hook me like i had expected. i’m not sure if it’s due to the narration or the storyline. I absolutely loved the narrator of the bone witch trilogy. this narrator was good too but again, i just wasn’t immersed.
As for the story- There's a lot of bickering with the young characters. Some parts felt forced. Alex became a character i hated. Tala became super annoying. My favorite characters are probably Cole and Zoe. And maybe Ryker. I haven't decided on whether or not i want to read the next book, i don't want to be disappointed again.

Not a fan at all

I’m very disappointed in this series. I usually like her books. It was boring and the focus was on way too many characters you couldn’t get a full grasp on each characters idiosyncrasies, too much going on, not enough background on Alex, annoying writing. Extremely disappointing. Waste of a credit.