King of Fools (The Shadow Game, #2)

by Amanda Foody

[Quirky Cat]

King of Fools is the second novel in Amanda Foody's The Shadow Game trilogy. It is a novel that many fans have been waiting for. Though I was lucky enough not to have to wait, since I only just got into the series.

Levi and Enne survived The Shadow Game, but their story is far from over. Enne is still trapped in the City of Sin, and she will be until Levi finds a solution to their shared problem. Thankfully, his tendency to take on gambles may have just set them up for freedom.

Or failure, depending on how you want to look at it. Throwing their futures into the ring alongside the deciding of the next Chancellor and the success of their individual games does seem pretty risky, no matter how one looks at it.

“Because the hero of the story is the villain of someone else's. It's all just a matter of who wins.”

Warnings: King of Fools covers many of the same heavy subjects as the first novel, but mainly drug addiction, control (magically granted), and violence.

Holy cats, King of Fools was such a whirlwind of a read. Or maybe it just felt that way to me, since I insisted on reading it all in one sitting. In my defense, I could never find the right spot to put the book down. It was all too captivating.

It has been a relatively short period of time, and yet Enne and Levi seemed to have changed in countless ways. Enne more so, in my opinion. Levi still seems to be relatively the same, taking big swings and risks, all without thinking of the consequences or the feelings he might hurt.

I honestly loved seeing more of this world, and the magical system within. We got a better look at the main characters, as well as all of the secondary characters that I've come to love. With it, we got a look at all of their gifts. I still would have taken more, but that's probably no surprise.

What I really adored was the increased level of politics included in this novel. And believe me – there's a lot of it. The politics of the whole city, as well as family politics, and gang politics. There's a ton of it, with everybody have their own needs and goals.

It added a lot to the story, for me. Suddenly the City of Sin felt more fleshed out than ever, and while that made it a bit more intimidating, I think that was the right call for this series. I imagine all of this will be setting up for the third and final book as well.

“It didn't matter whether she decked herself in knives or pearls. The world would always demand that a girl apologize for herself, but she would apologize for nothing.”

I joked about how the first book left me anxious to keep on reading, but it had nothing on King of Fools. That ending ripped out my heart and made me want to sit on the ground and cry. All while craving Queen of Volts, naturally. Thankfully, I didn't have long to wait before diving into that one, so I wasn't allowed to mope for too long.

Check out more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks