The Kings of Charleston Review

TITLEThe Kings of Charleston (The Kings of Charleston #1)
AUTHOR Kat H. Clayton
PUBLICATION July 10th 2012 by Kat H Clayton
READ March 16, 2013
SOURCE From the author for review

Casper Whitley is forced to move to Charleston, South Carolina where she’ll be the new kid her senior year of high school. Casper’s upset about the move until she meets the Roman family’s gorgeous son, Cal, but there’s a problem. A mystery surrounds him which can be summed up in one word…Kythera. Never heard of it? Neither has Casper until she finds the word tattooed on cars, paintings and all her new friends.

After Casper’s life is threatened, someone is forced to tell the truth about her parents, the Romans and Kythera’s motives for her being in Charleston. Once the truth is revealed, she must decide whether to protect her family and Kythera’s secrets or walk away from everything she has ever known.

I have to be honest and say that what sold me on THE KINGS OF CHARLESTON was the cover. I liked how, for a YA novel, it exuded a bit of sexiness that you don't normally see. It's pretty simple and yeah, it just worked for me. What didn't work was what was inside. A long drawn out story about a high society of complete riff raff that I cared nothing about.

My hatred for this novel has to be started with the MC Casper (I know right? We have the friendly freakin' ghost here.) This girl was such a paradox of herself. Her inner dialogue spoke of a girl who had her head on her shoulders and knew that she needed to put herself first and not fall all over some guy that she doesn't even know. But then she meets Cal. To be honest, I didn't even really find him all that charming, he was a bit too forceful and creepy for my taste. But all along Casper knows that Cal is hiding something HUGE from her and yet she still falls head over heels for the guy and starts dropping love bombs after a week or so. Not only does she know the entire time that Cal is blatantly lying to her (or withholding may be a better word) but she also almost gets murdered and then agrees to lie to the police for this guy! I'm sorry, she had been on the hunt the entire novel to find out the secret behind these Kythera people and then almost gets murdered because of the group and then lies to the police for them! Hell to the no! Give your head a shake girl.

Another huge turn off for me with this novel was Casper's parents. They were high society Richie Rich people and through the entire novel they are putting their need for money and a lavish lifestyle in front of their child's well-being. They make her move across the country the summer before she starts her senior year, which isn't the end of the world or anything but what comes next is. After Casper is almost murdered in a heist against the Kythera they decide to stay in Charleston and make her join the Kythera because otherwise they will be poor! They make her join this group who brands the members and has murderers after them! Loving parents if I've ever seen them!

There were also quite a few technical parts of the story that irritated me as well. In the ePub that I read rather than italicizing words that were supposed to be emphasized by the speaker they were underlined and that felt really juvenile to me (entirely personal preference, I know.) Also the pacing was just all over the place. At one point, I kid you not, I took a nap. When Callie goes to take a bath we get every minute detail from her taking off her clothes, turning on the water, feeling the water to get it to the right temperature, turning the water off, getting in the tub, soaking, getting out of the tub, almost slipping, wishing she had cushy blue bath mats... you get the picture. There were some adrenaline infused moments but they came much too late in the story to really grab me, I had already pretty much checked out.

I had so many problems with this story that the reading experience was far from enjoyable. The thing that kept me going for most of it was finding out who these Kythera people were and then by the time I got to find out I was so far gone that I didn't really care anymore. I think they might have been rich snobs? Who can get anyone they want? And they have lots of money. Yeah, money. I can't recommend this one to anyone, which makes me sad because I wanted this to be a mob type story that stood out in YA. It failed at that. Badly.