Review: The Kingdom of Little Wounds

The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

They say you should never judge a book by the cover, and yet the cover is often what pulls my attention towards new authors. Such is the case with The Kingdom of Little Wounds. I saw it sitting on the bookshelf, and thought it looked like a wonderful read. The cover instantly filled my mind with notions of what kind of book it could be, without giving me anything specific. Thus, I flipped it over. The information on the back, however, didn’t fill in all that many blanks. It gave me something, but mostly I was left with little knowledge. There were many possibilities and I was interested to see how it would play out.

I’ll be completely honest and say it took me a while to get into this book. In fact, it was very slow going for the first half of the book. It is a heavy read – both the topic and the storytelling. Although it was the latter I had issues with. I’m no stranger to books dealing with heavy topics, and in many ways this one felt rather light when compared to some books I have read. The storytelling, however, took a while for me to connect with.

We’re given multiple perspectives throughout this book. Two different characters provide us with a first-person perspective, allowing us insight into the minds of two of the characters. Events that occur with other important characters are told through third-person, snippets appearing throughout to give us a bigger picture of what is happening. In addition, there are breaks in the main story where other tales are told. Due to there being so much going on, I found myself unable to connect with any one character for quite some time. I would be enjoying one of the first-person perspectives, and then we would skip somewhere else, and I would be left feeling adrift. Once my mind was accustomed to this, and the story started to come together, I found myself working through the book rather quickly.

Getting to the point in the story where things start to come together will be hard for many people. I went into this story with no prior knowledge, meaning I went in without the knowledge of what kind of fairy-tale this is. You see, this book is a fairy tale about syphilis. That alone should tell you what kind of story you will be dealing with. It is set against a dark historical backdrop, taking us into the gritty world that existed in a time gone by. There are fairy tale creatures thrown in for good measure, but the actions reflect the history of the world – the dark history. This means there is murder, there is rape, there is disease, and many other things people may not wish to read about. I know it took me a while to wrap my head around how dark this story was, especially with how I thought I was going to enter a fairy tale with only a few dark moments.

Those who are able to deal with such topics, however, will be given an intricate story. There was so much more to this one than I expected there to be. There were so many layers throughout, so many different stories going on within this one story. Things are linked together so well, creating a web of the finest silk. Honestly, I was so amazed at the end when I realised how well everything went together. I may not have been engaged throughout the entire story, but I can appreciate how complex the story was and how well put together it was.

I also wish to briefly touch upon a debate I’ve found surrounding this book – the issue of whether or not it should be considered a young adult novel. I find the label of young adult is a rather complex one nowadays. Whether people agree or not, the genre does seem to be split into upper and lower young adult. Those in the upper young adult category have been appearing more and more often, dipping ever closer to the adult genre yet keeping the young adult moniker due to the age of the lead character. In all honesty, whilst dark, I do not think The Kingdom of Little Wounds was as graphic as some of the young adult books out there. I’ve read comments where people are arguing against the sexual content of the novel – and yet it was nowhere near as graphic as some of the most popular young adult fantasy at the moment. In my mind, if Sarah J. Maas is considered young adult with all the sexual content, I have no issue labelling this a young adult book. It is dark, it deals with heavy topics, but I like to think teenagers can read such books. Not all will want to, but books like this should be made available to teens should they wish to read them, rather than them searching through the adult genre where things will be even more graphic. Of course, opinions differ and I know the debate will not end simply because I throw my opinion out there.

Overall, my experience with this one was rather mixed, made up of complex highs and lows. Did I love it? No. Did I hate it? No. Do I regret reading it? No. In time I may look back at this and have a clearer opinion, but for now my feelings as unsettled.

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