Harrow absolutely must be commended on her creativity. This book was FRESH.

The idea that someone could be dropped in an ASOIAF-adjacent high fantasy series and the resulting isekai/portal fantasy book would be written with the most basic prose, juvenile dialogue, floundering plot, and paper-thin worldbuilding is so, so, so ridiculous.

There's a whole lot of telling not showing, as if the habit of constantly infodumping about the book makes Maggie feel the need to also explain every interaction. There's very little intrigue and very little left up to the reader to glean or interpret, which is entirely unengaging. Additionally, the allusions to real-world things like TikTok trends are completely cringey and are determined to break what little immersion you may possess.

The dialogue is simple and YA-ish and honestly lacks any indication of taking place in a psuedo-medieval European setting. On top of that, Maggie's constant "Wow," "Cool," and "Oh crap," comments (thought they are internal) convey a jarring sense of unseriousness, which is definitely off-putting coming from the only POV character.

The real tragedy of the novel is the clear lack of impact. The lack of character glossary told me that we aren't expected to take the countless infodumps seriously, and I didn't. Skimming did not at all prevent me from understanding the plot, little that there was. As things happen and Maggie tells you the impact, there's no reason to really feel it. I found myself very early on caring little about the other characters' outcomes. To add to that, I don't think Maggie is concerned enough about, y'know, not being in her world. I was waiting for her to get an idea or discover something about how to get home, play along with the characters, then find it hard to leave them after coming to genuinely care for them. instead she jumps in pretty willingly to do whatever these people need her to do. The "found family" trope is poorly developed and feels forced, especially being that Maggie has a family she loves and misses? None of it was enough to get me interested in Maggie's story, which is concerning coming, again, from the main character.

(Skip next paragraph if you're concerned about spoilers.)

Back to impact, the reveals/twists are basically inconsequential. The "Reynauld" reveal has zero meaningful effects on the plot going forward, and Maggie's flip-flopping feelings for him highlights how much the "romance" feels like a requirement rather than a genuine development. The wizard tower fight? After they hyped him up? Just skip whichever single chapter that takes place in.

Though it's clear the authors took time to think up some different ideas for cultures, customs, creatures, it really doesn't mean much. It's all just a little backdrop. (See mentions of wizard tower, above.) It feels like exactly what it is: cheap hallmarks of the fantasy genre sprinkled in with some things made up for a story within a story. Calling this high fantasy is generous, (is the epic scope in the room with us?) and the story honestly hinges on conventions of romantasy if anything. That any of the word count was used to define what a chemise is says enough. Combined with the poor dialogue, it's hard to argue that the world feels "alive" or interesting, and at no point does it feel like there's enough momentum to continue reading with the next book.

Maggie's ingenuity with the soap was interesting as was the fact that the timelines and plot points of the books kept changing based on her actions. Leaning more heavily on that would have been more engaging and would allow the reader to experience the world with Maggie instead of through exposition.

Overall, the tone set forth by the dialogue, prose, plot, and worldbuilding of This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me does not match, and is indeed contradictory to, the tone of the story this wants to be. I genuinely think it fails at every aspect. Choosing to call it "Outlander meets Game of Thrones" is insulting in every possible way. This book is missing all of the depth, political intrigue, skilled worldbuilding, and captivating characters the aforementioned series possess. It's so very obvious that this was written to be ingested by people with a taste for BookTok slop. Whether this is the standard set by Andrews' prior works, or a new departure, I myself will never know as I will never venture to read another one of their books.