I loved this so much, it reminded me of Disneyland, only with futuristic hybrid robot princesses that develop glitches in their programming!!
Brilliant, immersive read, darker than I was expecting, as it covers some deeper topics such as animal cruelty, sexual harassment and suicide.
This was one fun, engaging, action packed sci-fi fantasy thrill ride!!!

#TheKingdom is a theme park in the future, and Ana the main character is a hybrid Fantasist, an android/human Princess (think Disney Princess) who’s sole function is to make the guests happy and their dreams come true.

Ana is now being held in prison accused of murder, and the story is told via the courtroom and from Ana’s POV at the time of the events.

After a traumatic event involving one of her sister princesses, Ana begins to question the world she knows and becomes interested in one the maintenance staff romantically. Can a hybrid fall in love? Can a hybrid kill?

I really enjoyed this book, thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for my free advance copy in return for an unbiased review.

This review will be posted on my blog, Foxes and Fairy Tales, on June 20,

The Kingdom is a fascinating blend of science-fiction, fantasy and terrifyingly believable AI.

The book is fast-paced and very easily readable and it's scattered through with trial excerpts and interview fragments which, together with Ana's POV of her time in the park, come together to tell the story.

There's a great mystery element to The Kingdom. We start the story with Ana on trial for murder, but to find out the victim, the motive and whether or not she is guilty you have to wait and watch the details as they're gradually revealed.

Ana is one of the android princesses that belong to The Kingdom theme park (along with her sisters Kaia, Yumi, Eve, Zara, Pania, and Zel). She's a really interesting narrator because at time's she's very innocent and naive, while at others she's more snarky and worldly. She develops from the well-behaved, dutiful daughter to a strong-willed rebel as her curiosity gets the better of her.

I thought the ending was a tad rushed and a couple of things could have been explained in a little more depth, but otherwise it was an exciting read.

There's a lot going on in The Kingdom: interesting looks at climate change and it's effects, genetic engineering and a controlling Big-Brother-like authority. The ending was a total surprise to me, the romance sweet and the premise is unlike any other YA novel I've read.

I really enjoyed this book. .

I think the idea of a theme part in a dystopian setting was a lot of fun, different than what I read before. I cared about the characters. I think the plot was good paced with things to be curious about. There were elements of a thriller as well, which made me turn the pages.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Picture this: a futuristic Disney World swarmed with robotic hybrid animals and instead of Disney Princesses, there are flawless, androids named ´Fantasists´ whose sole goal is to make the park guests' fantasies come alive.

I´ve read numerous books lately based around the post-human arguments surrounding genetic modification or the creation of flawless androids. As a result, I feel as if that altered my reading experience slightly.

The theme park was so intriguing. The book was such a quick read so I would have loved more details about this futuristic Disney-like world. I also underestimated how dark this tale would be. The men overseeing the female androids possess perverse desires. They objectify the androids and, considering they were created to simply look pretty and serve, they expect them to obey even the most twisted commands. They don´t have feelings, they don´t have desires. Or do they?

Our protagonist, Ana, is one of the seven beautiful android Fantasist sisters. She´s a machine, devoid of human emotion. That is until her relationship with a park ranger, Owen, starts to blossom. Unfortunately, from here, the whole romance plot and the what-it-means-to-be-human storyline didn't interest me much. Dreams, tears, and a fluttering heartbeat whenever she feels his gaze; these emotions and experiences are new to her. As her emotions intensify, she begins to figure out the meaning of love, life and humanity and starts to question The Kingdom´s ethics. While the story jumps back and forth between two years prior to Ana´s murder trial and to the post-trial interview, it all draws to a somewhat predictable ending.

This book may have not been my favourite, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. It proposes some poignant questions about not only the lengths to which those in power will go to provide entertainment to the masses but also the frightening possibilities of our future technology.

I think this is definitely a case of “it’s me, not you” because I couldn’t get into The Kingdom at all. I loved the sound of it, and it started off great, but I just couldn’t connect with it. The writing is good, the premise is everything I would look for, but for some reason I just didn’t get in with it at all. Rating it high because it’s me that’s the problem, not the book!

I loved this book and read it in nearly one sitting.

The theme park made for a beautifully dystopian setting and I enjoyed the main character getting to grips with her self awareness and the realisation that there was more to life than being submissive and subservient.

The plot has a good mix of horror and thriller and provides a reason to care about the characters.

Yes it is simillar to the Stepford Wives and Westworld but this makes it easier to be absorbed by the setting and the author has given it a YA spin. Most of us are brought up to be good girls, to be seen and not heard and the teeange years are perfect for testing these ideas and ripping them to shreds.

Imagine a park where dreams come true; extinct animals are brought back to life; where reality blurs. This is the Kingdom where hybrids live and work, where secrets are kept and, ultimately, evolution is expected.

Although not a new concept this is an interesting take on where scientists could design robots and the ultimate fantasy park for pleasure.

A chilling reminder of man’s desire for knowledge

The kingdom is a futuristic sci-fi high tech Disney land where happily ever after is a rule.
We follow Ana, a hybrid princess who lives in the park while she is on trial for murder and fourteen months before, when she is falling in love, a thing she isn't programmed to do.
This book kept me intrigued from the beginning as we switch between the two times. It was an easy read and worked well to get me out of my reading slump.
The ending made me excited for the next book.

The Kingdom - a theme park in the future, where, thanks to technology and virtual reality, extinct animals roam, where you can soar into space or dive into the oceans, swim with mermaids or take part in battles. Ruling over it are seven princesses, or fantasists, human/robot hybrids, made to make dreams come true.
Of course, the theme park underbelly is as dark as the dream is glittery gold. The hybrid creatures are diseased, the fantasists sleep in a lab, not a castle, the animals feel pain, and there's definitely something sordid going with the older model of princess at the parties only they attend...
The book opens with a murder and dives straight into the trial of Ana, our fantasist narrator. She's almost definitely killed someone, the question is whether she's responsible or, as a programmed hybrid, whether those programming her are to blame. After all, she's not the first fantasist to go rogue. The court scenes are told in conjunction with flashbacks, from Ana's POV, detailing the last two years, the strange behaviour of her closest friend Nia and her first encounter with park technician Owen.
The Kingdom has a great concept, but one that just doesn't really deliver. Ana isn't interesting enough as a narrator (and, yet again, another YA book in first person present. This fad cannot end soon enough to suit me, too often it feels like a breathless list of 'then I did this and then I felt that' and this was very much the case here), the plot not compelling enough (and the twist too predictable) to really hold my attention. Meanwhile the really interesting story here, the moral complexity of creating hybrids, of the humanity in the fantasists, the issues that raises, goes untold.

I downloaded this on a whim after an email from NetGalley highlighted it. Android princesses! Twisted Disney-land-esque kingdom which clearly hides something much more sinister! Murder! Pink sparkly castle on the cover! I was so on board with this. It felt like it would be The Selection crossed with The Diabolic, and I was so here for that.
Once I got into the book, I was a little... underwhelmed. It did have android princesses. It had a twisted Disney-world-esque kingdom with sinister undertones and a main character who was being controlled so much more than she realised. And actually it had lots of great visuals and flashes of excellence in understanding diversity and what it means to be human. There is a point where the main character, Ana, muses on how your appearance relates to your identity. The seven Fantasists, android princesses who live in the Kingdom, are designed to appeal to a range of fans, covering all beauty ideals, but their appearances don't carry the weight of a life lived as a POC. There's some great background and incidental scenes of people's reactions to Ana, and their disgust at the thought of her. There's also a big thread running through the book of whether Ana is capable of murder, of shrugging off her programming to the extent that she starts to feel, and whether hybrids - natural-technological creations - are capable of evolution. All of this stuff was great.
Sadly, however, it was obscured by a lacklustre plotline with a main character who was introspective but lacked any insight, a love interest who was bewilderingly bland, and a central conflict that never really played out in any sort of satisfying payoff.
Ana is on trial for murder - the book's narrative actually doesn't tell us who's been murdered for a good chunk of the action, but the blurb kind of throws away this careful plotting by telling us immediately that it's Owen - and the tale of how this happened is told through court testimony, a post-trial interrogation with Ana's creator, and largely through flashbacks from Ana's point of view. It was an interesting structure, which I don't think actually worked all that well because of how I was reading it. I think because I was reading an eARC, the formatting wasn't as crisp as it will be in the finished product, and the delineation will be clearer in a fully typeset version. Although it wasn't the greatest experience for me, I fully expect it to be great once the finished book is available.
The marketing material for this book pegs it as being Westworld-esque. Not having seen Westworld, I don't know what that means, so it was totally lost on me. Perhaps I need to become more culturally aware...
In any case. This was a good book, with flashes of brilliance, but hidden under a rather dull and clunky at times storyline that detracted from the twisted brilliance at the heart of the story and the really interesting theoretical perspectives that could have been given more time to shine.

Amazing sci fantasy mash up, with a Theme Park Of The Future featuring extinct animals and advanced robot Princesses. The story follows Ana, one of the Princesses, as she slowly starts to realise that something is rotten in the Kingdom and begins a fight for her freedom. Interspersed through the story are excerpts and transcripts from a court case where Ana is on trial for murder. The lead up to the murder is extremely tense and features a very clever twist I didn't see coming. An excellent read.

(I did notice a couple of errors in the story, but hopefully they'll be corrected in the finished copy.)

A brilliant read: I encourage everyone to read and enjoy.

THIS BOOK IS BLOOMIN' INCREDIBLE.

It's so fun, with such a fascinating world and concept that has been built, hybrid animals, animals being restored where they were previously extinct, robot princesses to interact with guests, a whole theme park so intricately designed and controlled.
But instead, we get to explore the darker side.

There's a lot of social comments that can be found within the book whether it be on; beauty as a commodity, what makes someone human, male power, animal abuse - even climate change. There's so many various ways to look deeper into this story and I can't wait to buy a physical copy to unpack it all even more.

There's two time frames at the same time which make it even more gripping and trying to solve the mystery in your head. There's the court case, and then there is the memories that Ana has of everything leading up to the murder. Was I satisfied with the outcome of the mystery? Yes.

Although this is supposedly a standalone, I really hope there is going to be a spin off or maybe some novellas set in this world because holy fudge it was so unique and amazing. I need some more evil disney but with robots in my reading pile.

*4.5 Stars

This is going to be one of those books that I'm thinking about for weeks after I've finished it. The entire premise of this book was incredibly intriguing. The story is about Ana, a human-robot hybrid 'princess' created as part of a fantasy experience within a futuristic theme park. We're talking Disney Land but with mermaids, polar bear robots and creepy investors.

The narrative weaves back and forth between Ana's memories of her time in the park and her attempts to solve a mystery (no spoilers!) surrounding her and her 'sisters', with trial transcripts and interviews that shed light onto a murder that Ana has been accused of. I loved the way the story was told, we get small glimpses of the events that had taken place leading up to the trial but it's always vague enough that you can't fit all the pieces together yet. There were so many unpredictable twists. I never expected what was about to happen or where the story was going to go next.

Ana fascinated me. She struggles alot with her loyalty to her sisters and with the programme that created her but there's an inner desire to just simply be human and to experience the emotions and risks that come with it. She was a great character study into what makes us human and just how evolved technology could one day be. It was a little scary thinking about how technology evolves every day and that one day the events in the book could one day be a reality. Ana and Owen were a sweet romance but I was definitely more focused on Ana's character and her conflicts and choices more then anything else.

The setting was one of my favourite parts of the book. The way Jess Rothenberg describes 'The Kingdom' had me wishing I could go back to Disney World (I went six months ago and loved every minute of it) due just to how magical she made it feel. I loved all the little descriptions of the different areas and the names of each section. It had me wishing there was a real theme park with a star deck observatory and a mermaid lagoon.

I raced through this book in order to reach the ending and see how everything would piece together and whilst I wasn't disappointed with the ending, I was expecting it to be a little darker then it was. It could have gone in a very different direction with the choices that Ana made. The actual ending is still fulfilling though and is a great end to a great book.

I was fascinated by the premise of this book as I had watched Westworld on television and it seemed like a similar idea. As good as the story was I started to feel as if what I was reading was becoming a clone of the tv show at times.

The story jumps between a court case against one of the Fantasists, Ana, and flashbacks of her life as she starts to question things around the park. Certain parts of the story felt a little boring to me at times, I found myself speed reading through them. But as the court case picks up pace I found myself desperate to know why Ana did what she was accused of. And if she didn’t do it then who had.

I was pleasantly surprised with the ending of the story, and I felt it redeemed the whole thing for me.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a copy.

I’ve got to be honest, I absolutely loved this and read it in one sitting. The story of the make believe Disneyland (it’s just a more updated version of that) with hybrid animals and hybrid fantasists was enthralling. Think seven Disney Princesses that aren’t quite real and something goes wrong with.
Loved Ana’s story, as a hybrid who was kept in a ‘safe’ world and didn’t get told the truth about things. Loved her curious mind and the dark undercurrent in this book which let your imagination go to unpleasant places. Her discovery at the end isn’t far off the premise of the TV show Humans and fitted really well.

The Kingdom is an interesting book. I liked the concept of the disturbing side of fantasists; it is Stanley Kubrick for teenagers. I thought that the underlying current of darkness was good but under explored in some ways. The writing is well thought out with interspersed transcripts. I felt that the ending was tagged on and the plot a little predictable. Teenagers will like this, especially girls.

Inspired by the splendour of everyone's favourite magical kingdom and spliced with the sinister whims of humanity, The Kingdom is the book I didn't know I'd been waiting for.
The fanciful world of the Fantasists is one of dreams, happiness, wishes, routine, rules. But when reality begins to seep through the well-kept cracks of The Kingdom, the illusion slowly begins to unravel. With loveable characters, incredible pacing and a world brimming with imagination, The Kingdom will fulfil all your expectations and more, because Happily Ever After isn't just a promise...it's a rule.

The Kingdom is cross between Louise O’Neill’s Only Ever Yours and Westworld with a YA twist and a complete delight to read, I absolutely tore through this book. The story is full of some great twists and chapters are broken up between our our protagonist Ana’s memories and the trial /interrogation she is part of – as with most of my reviews I am hesitant to share any more as I believe the reader should learn bit by bit as Rothenberg intended.

Similarly to everyone else I was drawn in by the cover and then the blurb but the book was certainly darker than I was expecting and provided exactly what I required for this YA – that being said I am not sure how young I would class this as some of the topics are implied heavily and would be hard to ignore/miss. As an adult that did not hinder my experience but something to be aware of.

I’d definitely recommend picking this one up, you won’t regret it!

Thank you to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for an early copy of The Kingdom.

TW: Self harm, suicide and sexual assault (rape implications).

I have to start with the cover. It is gorgeous and it is what drew me to the book in the first place. The Kingdom is a haunting tale and it was darker than I expected, although I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting. It is set in a theme park which I loved and the atmosphere was great. It opens with a murder scene and then jumps into the post-trial interview.

The chapters are split. You have some set in the past approximately 2 years before the murder and others set in the present which is post-murder trial. This took me some time to get used to but I did like it. It is also told through different media for example court documents and video survallance footage.

The Kingdom is a theme part that uses fantasists which are advanced robots created to look pretty, serve and fulfill fantasies which is as creepy as it sounds. There are uncomfortable scenes for example it alludes to sexual assault which is covered up by a memory wipe. The fantasists are not meant to feel anything. Our main character Ana is a fantasist and she begins to feel things and then questions things.

Overall it is a darkly haunting yet good read that makes you question what it is to be human.

Trigger warnings - self harm, suicide and rape.