#UltimateBlogTour Review: The Wrongful Death by Kenneth B. Andersen (The Great Devil War #3)

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

An interesting continuation of The Great Devil War series, full of twists and turns.

Thank you so much to The Write Reads and Kenneth B. Anderson for allowing me to be part of this experience and also providing me with a complimentary digital copy and blog tour media kit!

About the Author

Kenneth B. Andersen (1976) is an award-winning Danish writer. He has published more than forty books for children and young adults, including both fantasy, horror, and science fiction. 

His books have been translated into more than 15 languages and his hit-series about the superhero Antboy has been turned into three movies. A musical adaptation of The Devil’s Apprentice, the first book in The Great Devil War series, opened in the fall 2018 and film rights for the series have been optioned. 

Kenneth lives in Copenhagen with his wife, two boys, a dog named Milo, and spiders in the basement.

• Website www.kennethbandersen.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/WriterKennethBAndersen/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kenneth_b_andersen/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/K_B_Andersen
• Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kenneth-b-andersen

Review

Book CWs

• Bullying
• Abuse
• Torture
• Paranormal Creatures
• Attempted Murder
• Child endangerment
• Negative depictions of God
• Character Death

Premise

An unfortunate chain of events makes Philip responsible for the untimely death of the school bully Sam – the Devil’s original choice for an heir.

Philip must return to Hell to find Sam and bring him back to life, so that fate can be restored. But trouble is stirring in Lucifer’s kingdom and not even Philip can imagine the strange and dark journey that awaits him.

A journey that will take him through ancient underworlds and all the way to Paradise.

Review (No Spoilers)

If you’ve been keeping up with my reviews, you’ll know that I’m participating in blog tours for the entire Great Devil War series. If you’ve fallen behind, you can catch my previous reviews here: The Devil’s Apprentice (#1) , The Die of Death (#2).

The Wrongful Death was probably the quickest book for me to read of the series so far which was good because as usual, I put things off until the last minute and started the book only a few days ago lol. My feelings on this book were very similar to the ones that I had for The Die of Death. I think that this series has a lot of interesting twists and turns but I wish that the sequels included more explanations of why things are the way they are since that was my favorite part about The Devil’s Apprentice.

My favorite part about The Wrongful Death was probably traveling to the different worlds. In the book, we have glimpses of Earth, Hell, Heaven, Hades, and Asgard. I really hope that these places (and more) will appear in the rest of the series because I enjoy meeting new godly characters. I also really enjoyed seeing more of Sam. He’s a character that I think has a lot of potential and I like the direction Kenneth B. Anderson is heading with him.

The blog tour for the next book in the series, The Angel of Evil, will probably be in May or June so stay tuned for more! This series seems to be getting more and more intense!

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Trope-ical Readathon Wrap-Up

My partner and I hosted our first readathon on April 5th! We called it the Trope-ical Readathon and it was a 24 hour readathon where participants could read whatever books they wanted and fill out a bingo board that we made based on things that appear in a lot of books.

Here’s the bingo board we had:

Honestly, it was a LOT of fun. We’re definitely going to be doing another readathon again, so if you’re interested in participating, follow @tropeicalreads on Twitter for updates!

Book #1: Of Curses and Kisses by Sandhya Menon (2.5 stars)

This book was such a disappointment and I’m still so sad about it. It was so hyped on Twitter and I really thought I was going to enjoy it.

One of the things that upset me the most about the book was that it’s classified as a Beauty and the Beast retelling but it kind of isn’t? I felt like it would have been fine as an original tale (given a few tweaks) and that the author was beating me over the head with a stick trying to get me to believe that the male MC was the beast. The following quote is completely made up by me and not in the book but this is basically what it felt like I was reading every time he was in a scene:

He ate his spaghetti with such ferocity that it was SO INCREDIBLY BEAST-LIKE. The slurps he made sounded more like THE GROWL OF A GRIZZLY BEAR than that of a human boy. His hunched over frame resembled that of A LARGE ANIMAL ready to pounce on its prey.

Book #2 Waiting for Tom Hanks by Kerry Winfrey (4 stars)

This was pretty darn cute of a read! The characters were kind of completely ridiculous but in an adorable rom-com sort of way that I enjoyed. I think what I most appreciated was that the book didn’t shy away from showing how friendship can mean so many different things depending on the people involved.

I don’t remember much about why I took away a star but it was probably because this book includes a trope that I’ve always hated. It’s kind of a spoiler if I say which trope it is but if you’re curious, just ask!

Book #3: Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz (3 stars)

This book started off really well for me. I was laughing a lot and falling in love with both of the MCs fairly quickly. Unfortunately, I got incredibly bored as the book progressed and lost interest in the plot. There is a good chunk of around 100 pages in the middle where I felt like almost nothing happened. I kind of wonder if the book started off as a novelette since it’s only around 300 pages total.

Regardless, this book had pretty in-depth character development which is something that I think YA often lacks. I was really happy that I was able to watch the MCs grow as people and learn from their mistakes.

Book Blogger Insider Tag

Well this is embarrassing because I was tagged by Emily back in….November 2019. WOOPS!

Where do you typically write your blog posts?

I used to write them in my office at work but now that I’m at home most of the time, I’ve been writing them in my office/cat room at home.

How long does it generally take you to write a book review?

Once I actually sit down and focus, probably around 30 min to an hour. The issue is trying to get myself to focus..

When did you start your book blog?

July 2019. Not gonna lie, I had to look this up because I didn’t remember at all.

What is the worst thing about having a book blog in your opinion?

I think the worst thing is the amount of pressure I put on myself to review everything that I read in a timely manner. I have to get better at telling myself that I don’t have to review EVERY book and that I can sometimes skip it.

What is the best thing about having a book blog in your opinion?

The best thing would be discovering the book community on Twitter. I’ve had Twitter for a LONG time but I was hardly every active on it. Once I made my book Twitter, I finally made some online connections and started to really experience it.

What blog post have you had the most fun writing so far?

Probably my review for Red, White, and Royal Blue because I loved that book so much so it was a blast to write about it.

What is your favorite type of blog post to write?

I would probably say tags like this but as you can see, sometimes I don’t get to them for MONTHS.

When do you typically write?

I had a lot of time in my office at work during office hours because students hardly ever came so I would often write during those. When I’m home, it just depends on when I have the energy.

Do you review every book you read?

Oh! I kind of got into this above. I try to but I have skipped a few of them just because I put them off too long and ended up forgetting about the book. Though as I’ve mentioned before, I’m trying to let myself have a break sometimes.

How do you write your book reviews? With a cup of coffee or tea? With Netflix? Cuddled with your fur baby?

Recently I’ve been writing them while watching Netflix or Amazon Prime Video because I have a lot of shows to catch up on.

When do you write your book reviews? Right after finishing the book? Two weeks after finishing the book?

It widely varies. In the beginning I think I was trying to write them in the same week and then for a bit of time I was writing them right after finishing but that didn’t last long. I’ll probably go back to trying to write them in the same week.

How often do you post?

Since I have a hard time sitting down to write, I post pretty sporadically but at least several times a month.

I tag:

• MrsReadalot1989
• The Reading Millenial
• MahoganyRead.
• Kriti (Armed with a book)

Chill Relaxed Readathon Wrap-Up

(This is a late post because I’ve been having a hard time focusing on things lately.)

From March 13-March 15, my partner and I participated in a weekend readathon hosted by Tiffany. The goal of the readathon was to get everyone’s mind off of Covid-19 so there was only one rule: No virus talk!

I finished 4 books during this readathon and since I’ve fallen so behind on book reviews, I decided that instead of giving each book it’s own post, I should do a wrap-up with mini-reviews.

Book #1: Bewitched by Kelly Moran (3.5 stars)

Bewitched was a book that I received for free from Booktasters in exchange for an honest review. I wrote a review and posted it on Goodreads and Amazon, so I’ll just paste that review here:

Bewitched was an entertaining read that I really enjoyed. It reminded me a lot of Charmed (sometimes to the point where I felt like it was fanfiction), which is a show that I grew up watching with my sister and binge watched all seasons on Netflix a few years ago. One of the things that I think I should mention is that this book is not as “romance-y” as the cover makes it look. With the shirtless dude on the cover, it seems like this book would be super steamy but there are only around three sexual scenes and they’re pretty short/tame. The book focuses a lot more on the actual plot than the sex, which is something that I can appreciate.

The characters were all pretty likable for who they were. I actually think the character I liked the least was Kaida because she was basically always crying or on the verge of crying. Pull yourself together, Kaida! I am guessing that the next two books must be written to focus on Ceara and Fiona and I’m very interested in learning more about them. They’re both very intriguing characters!

Book #2: Don’t Read the Comments by Eric Smith (4 stars)

I really enjoyed this book and its characters! I find that I often dislike YA protagonists so it was nice to find two characters that I could relate to and cheer on. What I appreciated most about this book was the fact that it tackled a lot of sexism/racism that gamers experience online and how prevalant bullies (and bully sympethiseraz) are in the world.

There was one particular thing in the book that upset me and it was “amazingegg”. If you’ve read the book, you might remember what I’m talking about. What this word seemed to indicate to me was poor copy editing because my best guess as to why it is in the book is because Eric Smith wanted to explore a plot arc, ultimately decided against it, but forgot to remove the word from earlier on in the story.

Book #3: Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed (2.5 stars)

This was a book that I was looking forward to because I had heard a lot about it. I basically only ever heard good things so I figured there was no way it could go wrong. Sadly, I was mistaken.

The worst part about this book was that I HATED almost every character. I felt like all of them had personalities that involved being terrible to everyone around them and not feeling bad about it. I didn’t feel like any of the characters developed in the book to learn from their mistakes. I’m actually amazed at how much I enjoyed the romance plot of the book considering how much I hated the two love interests.

Book #4: The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary (4.5 stars)

This is another book that I had seen a lot on Book Twitter and heard good things about. Thankfully, I really enjoyed this book! It was not at all what I was expecting and it took me a while to get used to the writing style (particularly Leon’s chapters) but it ultimately had great character development and a very interesting plot.

Something that I do want to warn readers about though is that this book deals heavily with emotional/sexual abuse. If that is something that might trigger you, maybe skip this read.