The misconceptions the other characters have about Reskin and the situations they get into are hilarious.

I’ve never read a book that had me laughing out loud as many times as this one did. I cannot do the comical moments in this book justice. Maybe that is why he is looking so deeply into her eyes he wants to discern if she answering his questions truthfully. Perhaps he doesn’t trust her and thinks she will pull out a weapon. He notices that the man is holding the woman’s hand and thinks it must be because he is restraining her. He disproves at how unaware they are of their surroundings, thinking they could be attacked from any side and wouldn’t noticed until it was too late. For example, he sees a man and woman at a table looking deeply into each other’s eyes. It is hilarious to watch him assess social interactions. Growing up in such a harsh environment with such strict rules, he is baffled that so many people don’t know how to defend themselves, that they walk around completely unaware of their surroundings, and is confused that they somehow reached adulthood without mastering “the rules.” Every mission he carries out goes smoothly and others admire him in every social interaction (even though he is doing it from a strategic stand point rather than an organic understanding).Ī character so good at everything would usually make me put the book down in a heartbeat, but I find Reskin enduring because of how naive he is to normal life and everyday interactions between people. He can fight with any weapon, he can use herbs to heal, he can break into even the most heavily-guarded banks, he knows every fact in history, he knows all the rules of high society and can act more noble than the nobility.

This makes for a comical scenario because anytime someone uses the word “friends” Reskin thinks, “Another one? But how will I protect this friend when my other friends are traveling in a different direction?” He thinks his higher ups assigned him a network of friends and that his purpose in life is to find and protect them. When he comes across a girl who casually uses the word “friends” to describe the two of them, he immediately makes it his top priority to protect her and her traveling companion. This book grabbed my interest when Reskin’s delirious, dying master croaked out that the most important rule for him to follow was to “protect and honor your friends” when he was supposed to say “your king.” All of a sudden the cliche fantasy story of a hero trained from birth to become a killing machine and be sent out on a grand mission becomes the story of a trained killer making it his mission to find these friends so he can carry out his purpose and protect and honor them.

Kings dark tidings by kel kade