Read this hot on the heels of TRADE ME. Blake and Tina are now in an established relationship and are planning to celebrate Chinese New Year with Tina's family-- but Blake wants his dad involved too, and his dad is a raging megalomaniac and a little bit of an asshole. Also he works with China and Tina's family was forced to flee China for practicing Falun Gong (considered a cult). No way this can end well.
I thought this story was really funny and cute. Tina is still helping Blake manage the recovery of his ED. Hong Mei is fucking hilarious. And we actually get some of Blake's dad's POV, Adam, which makes me sad because one of the unpublished books in this series is supposed to be about him and his love story, and if what I think happened happened, that book would probably make me ugly cry.
I'm sad that I've officially worked my way through all of the books in this series that are out. I'm guessing Milan dropped it because it wasn't doing as well as she hoped it would, but it's SUCH an amazing story set in Berkeley, CA about adults in their 20s working in tech.
If you're tired of alpha billionaires who like to dom their meek partners and want a soft boi billionaire who gets bulldozed by his outspoken and socially conscious opposite check out TRADE ME by Courtney Milan (and then check out PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT by Heather Guerre-- I read them back to back and I highly recommend it).
Blake and Tina go to the same college, but she's struggling to make ends meet and supporting her immigrant family and he's the son of one of the richest tech magnates in the world. When she shuts him down in class by calling him out on his privilege, rather than losing his shit, he offers to trade lives to show that he wants to understand what it's like and also bring her on board to help him with some of his company's secret software, given her STEM background and intelligence.
You really have to suspend your belief with the plot of this one, but honestly the characters make it. The author captures what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck, and presents a pretty realistic portrayal of the vast chasm that separates the haves from our have nots in a society where wealth disparity is constantly widening in the face of an increasingly ruthless capitalistic economy. ALSO, when have you ever read a romance novel where the male character has an eating disorder? Loved seeing that representation normalized here, and handled so sympathetically. The way another character's drug addiction was handled was also really well done. Just A-pluses all around.
I saw a lot of people saying that Tina was a bitch but I have a soft spot for prickly heroines. Especially if they're totally justified. I personally liked the sequel, HOLD ME, more, because Maria and Jay were my absolute FAVORITES, but this one was really good too. The way Milan writes about the Bay Area shows everything about what's good-- and bad-- here. I really hope she ends up continuing this series someday.
P.S. Get you a guy who goes down for cocaine possession to get you out of jail
This scratched the dark academia itch I've been touting since starting the Zodiac Academy series: girls with cut-out hearts, creepy cults, and town founders with too much time and power on their hands, Hollow Oak is not a safe place for the unwary. Luckily, Luz, a half-Puerto Rican wunderkind who speaks four languages and has a whole J. Crew-inspired closet full of dark secrets, is hardly unwary.
Why Choose? is not normally a genre I gravitate too, but I just loved the academia setting so much. I also liked all the Blackwells, especially Locke (he gives major Lance Orion vibes, so if you stan Blue x Orion, you'll probably love this book). Allister, Nixon, and Everest were all interesting too and I'm excited to learn more about them.
For some reason, I was expecting a supernatural element, but this feels more like a horror movie pastiche. I was reminded of Wednesday, Happy Death Day, Trick 'R Treat, and Scream, in particular. Most of the gore is on the DL, although there's one pretty gory torture scene towards the middle that was very hard to read. It's not integral to the plot, though, so if gore is hard for you to handle, you can totally skip over it without missing anything.
The book ends on a major cliffhanger, with a potentially large twist. I still have so many questions and I'm very excited to have them answered when I read more from this author. What a stellar debut.
Ngl, I'm kinda shocked that this has like two pages of one-star reviews after you get through the first page of mostly four stars and fives. They are seething, too. For a while, that and all of the TikTok hype kind of put me off the book. That, and I don't like sports. Eek. But when this went on sale, I picked it up out of morbid curiosity and because I thought the sample was really intriguing... and to my surprise, I really liked it.
ICEBREAKER is about a figure skater and a hockey player who end up having to skate together after (1) someone damages one of their college's two rinks and (2) Anastasia's skating partner is injured because of someone on Nate's team, resulting in him being benched.
This is really cute and REALLY smutty. I'd say the plot-to-smut ratio is 50/50 which is about as high as you can get without being erotica (more smut-focused). The sex scenes are hot (minus the cooing), although this is geared towards people that have a size kink, I think. I am in no way shocked that the Ali Hazelwoodinos love this book. Anastasia and Olive are probably in the same "OMG, Will He Fit?" bowling league.
So many people have reviewed this book already so here are some shorthand notes:
-I LOVED the focus on therapy and mental health. It is so amazing to see a new adult book be so positive about getting help for yourself and talking through things and self-searching.
-Nate is a wonderful love interest. Golden retriever in the streets, sex Daddy in the sheets. We stan.
-The friend circle of both the FMC and the MMC were so cute. I loved all of them.
-Fuck Aaron, like seriously. I was praying for a bus to run him over the whole time.
-This really didn't need to be 400+ pages. I ended up getting really bored in the middle. I'm so, so sorry to say this but if a book affects the pacing of the story and the reader's engagement, it's probably too long. (And that's not the only thing that's too long, hehe.)
-Loved the portrayal of emotional abuse in this book. It felt real and not at all sensationalized. It also eventually gets called out.
-I thought it was great that the hero had severe migraines, as well as several on-page episodes. I mean, not great, migraines suck, but representation is important. And I especially liked seeing a vulnerability like that in a hero who is very clearly strong. Give me all the men with relatable issues.
-It was so refreshing to see a fuckgirl heroine who was having one night stands and living her best life and actually stayed friends with her ex-fuckbuddy (who was also a doll?). Consent and sexual agency both played such a premium role in this book. It was absolutely fabulous.
-Stassie is a terrible, terrible nickname.
-Why did the MMC and FMC have sex while the hero was dressed as Gru? Dickspicable.
I was going to give this a three, but as I was listing all of this out, I remembered how much I loved the beginning and how much fun I had talking about this book, so I think I'm going to round up.
Also, I simp these boys so I'm almost certainly going to be reading the other books.
Whenever a book gets this popular, I'm always kind of leery of starting it because I feel like it almost gets to a point where the book will never live up to the standards I've set for it in my mind. My toxic reader trait is that I build things up in my mind until they reach a point where nothing short of god can match them. But after weeks and weeks and weeks of being bombarded with it on Goodreads, TikTok, and Instagram, I finally decided to bite the bullet. I told everyone around me how much I wanted to read the book, and someone picked up the hint and got it for me for my birthday present.
I read it in literally two days.
This book is god.
God of keeping me up at night and forcing me to read about hot shadow men and dragons.
I chose not to perceive most of the reviews for this book because I didn't want to be spoiled, but I did glance at a few spoiler-free ones that were both positive and negative before asking for this book. FOURTH WING is a fantasy book but it's a fantasy book written by a romance author, and in an interview I saw with her on TikTok, she said she wanted to write a book for people who had trouble getting into fantasy. In that regard, I think it succeeds wildly. It was very, very easy to get into this book. Case in point: me finishing it in two days, on very little sleep.
FOURTH WING is basically a cross between Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern, Mercedes Lackey's Joust, DIVERGENT, HUNGER GAMES, and VAMPIRE ACADEMY. Because of this, it feels almost nostalgic, even though it's contemporaneous. The language of the book is very modern so it isn't like a lot of high fantasy books, which tend to use very ornate and convoluted language. It is very easy to read and is written kind of like a young adult book, almost (although I'd put the target age demographic as probably new adult). Which means that it's accessible for young readers, but because the characters are older and the content is actually pretty sexual, older readers can enjoy it too without feeling weird.
I don't want to spoil too much because it's better going in cold, but I actually really loved this book. It's compulsively readable, and even though the heroine is a bit of a Mary Sue (seriously, two-toned hair and, like, super special powers? she's basically the posterchild), I liked that the author gave her real struggles in the form of chronic pain/long-term disability and a very real sense of being out of her element and having to struggle to achieve physical feats when all of her strength lies in book-learning. This rounded her out as a character. It's also a very feminist story. Sometimes the heroine does break the fourth wall (fourth wing, fourth wall, get it?), and it can come off as cheesy, but her perspective serves as a nice counterpoint for the borderline villainous hero, who despite being a couple years older than her, is often put in his place by her, so the relationship doesn't come across as being unequal.
FOURTH WING also subverts a lot of other tired tropes. The heroine isn't a virgin and says several times that she enjoys sex. Her best friend is queer and has an on-page relationship and the author doesn't bury her gays. It's very casual and the heroine teases her about her relationship the same way she teases the straight characters. Also, even though this is a military academy where the students are basically supposed to Hunger Games each other to get control of dragons, none of the violence that Violet faces from her attackers is ever sexual. I don't personally mind that in a story about bullying where it's obviously toxic, but I know it bothers a lot of people, and it's notably absent here.
But the biggest selling point for me? DRAGONS. I am still a ten-year-old girl at heart, okay? If a book has dragons OR unicorns in it, I will come running. As soon as I found out that this was a romantic fantasy book about a girl who bonds with dragons and has an enemies-to-lovers relationship with a morally grey hero, I basically fell over myself adding it to my to-read pile.
On a closing note, I feel like in the book community, there can be an almost hipster mentality where a popular book is seen as "selling out" or "too commercial," and reviewers feel a lot of pressure to hate on it for clout, lest their intellectualism and credibility be called into question. I am not saying that all one-star reviewers all clout-chasers (and I have definitely been the odd one out when it comes to very popular books more times than I can count), but I do definitely see people who seem like they hate on these books precisely because they sell well and maybe aren't as safely literary as other tried-and-true choices in the book blogger canon. I think it's wrong to punish a book for being easy to read though, and I think it's even more wrong to mock or deride reviewers who actually enjoy these books. Is this Tolkien? No. But that's why I like it. Tolkien, to me, is like a chore. Reading books like that feels like an unpleasant mental exercise. This book is like eating an entire bag of potato chips. Addictive. Fun.
So if you have had trouble getting into the fantasy genre and you really enjoy romance novels, this might be the gateway drug that ends up sucking you in for good. I honestly felt so giddy after reading this, the way I did after reading THE HUNGER GAMES for the first time. It was so much fun to post status updates for this book and fangirl over it with other readers who also enjoy it, and to be a part of the hype for a popular book while it's popular, and be excited over the release of the sequel. (WHICH I TOTALLY ALREADY PREORDERED BY THE WAY.) I hope, if you pick this book up, that you feel the same way. Although if you don't like it, I'll also totally understand. (Sort of.)
MUSIC OF THE NIGHT has been on my to-read list forever because I heard it was a Phantom of the Opera retelling, and I'm fucking obsessed with that whole franchise, but I kept putting it off and putting it off, and to be honest, the Goodreads reviews were a little daunting. When it showed up as a freebie on Stuff Your Kindle Day, it felt like kismet.
The writing in this book is great and it reads like it was professionally edited (even if it wasn't). I also really liked the cover, although the cover makes it look like it's YA and it does contain explicit sex scenes. This feels more like a new adult title, kind of like ACOTAR, rather than something that is for younger teens. I mean, it uses the words "cock" and "cum."
I actually think it's better than the ratings would indicate. The atmosphere is broody and alluring, and I loved the idea of a small kingdom built around a haunted tower shrouded in mist where bad things happened years ago. The problem comes with the heroine, who feels like a Mary Sue and lacks adequate motivations for the things she does. In her haste to get the heroine to meet the hero, Ford employs some very questionable decision making. Instead of having her drive the plot, the plot drives her, and it shows, because none of what she does really makes rational sense.
The hero, Uriah, was fine. I'm not a fan of his name but we stan a morally gray man in a mask with dubious motives who's good in bed. I wish his character had been fleshed out a little more, too. If you're going to hint and tease at the potential for betrayal and then not deliver, that's pretty frustrating. What this ultimately ends up feeling like is a dark romance for people who want the fancy trappings but hate the core of what dark romance actually represents.
So I was at my therapy session the other day and was like, "You know the problem with being a content creator with a larger platform is that everyone expects you to have an extremely radical opinion on whatever the latest hot take is, and it gets to the point where you start to second-guess your own opinions because you begin to ask yourself, 'is this really what I think or am I just doing this for the clicks?'" And then my therapist was like, "Ma'am, this is just a drive-thru Starbucks, please take your coffee so we can help the next person in line," and I was like, "Well, SOMEONE'S getting a one-star review on Zocdoc."*
*Just kidding, although if you don't think of coffee as therapy, you've obviously never had a double shot blonde espresso oat milk latte.**
**Seriously, just kidding. Coffee is not a substitute for therapy.
I was leery about picking up VICIOUS because literally everyone and their horny granny was hyping it up, and contrary to popular belief, I don't actually sit around here looking for popular books to hate on. I also really didn't like the last L.J. Shen book I read. It was one of her mafia ones and reading it made me angry, and I was like "NEVER AGAIN." So it kind of seemed like me and Ms. Shen just weren't destined to be. And I was fine with that. Really. Things were fine.
But then one of my friends wrote a review saying that this was basically THE CRUEL PRINCE but with a human cast. And it was like one of those children's TV show buzzers went off, where they're like, "Uh oh! You said today's WORD OF THE DAY!!!!!" Because if there was one thing she could have said that would have made me pick up the book, it was that. I fucking love THE CRUEL PRINCE. Enemies to lovers served up hot on a plate. There's seriously no better rush.
Here's the thing about VICIOUS. It's very much like Hana Yori Dango/Meteor Garden in terms of vibes. Except they call themselves the HotHoles, which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Also the hero's name is Vicious, which I guess he calls himself because he hates being named Baron. But as stupid as the name Baron is, I think his nickname might actually be worse. Also he calls the heroine "Help." Because she's part of the help. It takes a LOT of mental gymnastics to get over the nicknames, but after reading five books of Zodiac Academy and enduring things like "Faebook," my literary suspension of disbelief has stretched like taffy and I find myself willing to tolerate all kinds of ridic as long as it's for the sake of a good story. Maybe you can't get over the name thing. Maybe it's like sandpaper on your brain. But if you can get over the name thing, the story is so worth it.
Look, I get that it's toxic. I don't care. If you come at me with a story that serves up old skool Asian drama vibes, the feminism is going on the shelf for a while. I'm a sucker for the "I hate everyone but you" trope, especially when it's liberally salted with the "touch her and die" trope and the "I've loved you for years" trope. Yes, I know this buys into toxic masculinity and the idea that men only treat women like shit because they like them, and in real life, I would definitely give that a hard no, but in a story, where the characters are obviously meant for each other and you know that everything is guaranteed to turn out all right in the end because this is a redemptive romance and love is the invisible fairy godmother who makes everything all right with a kiss and a magic wand, I SHIP THE FUCK OUT OF IT. The end.
And this was a really great story. I actually really liked Emilia a lot. I liked that she had the agency and witty rejoinders of an old skool Charlotte Lamb heroine. I liked Vicious (ugh) and how he had such a sardonic and cynical outlook on life that was a result of not wanting to be hurt. I thought his backstory was super sad and I thought the revenge story was compelling and added a nice touch of darkness to what could have otherwise been a really saccharine storyline. I liked both timelines, the side characters, and the pacing of the story. When Emilia and Vicious go on their Christmas-in-New-York date I swooned. Actually, this might be the only Christmas romance I've read that didn't feel like it was trying to convert me to the Hallmark channel. It was just so good.
VICIOUS is a really great story. I'm not giving it a full five stars because the pacing was a little bumpy and I didn't particularly like the epilogue (and also the names, omg). But this was so, so close to being a perfect read. I might actually like L.J. Shen after all, oh my God. I can't wait to talk to my "therapist" about this tomorrow when I pick up my latte. (Starbucks staff: NOOOOOOOO***)
MAD AS HELL was such an emotional rollercoaster, and it dipped and dove to places that I didn't even expect. Keep your arms and your legs inside the cart, kids, because on this ride, they might just get cut off. The world of the rich and infamous is dangerous indeed, as Madison found out personally when the Faustian bargain she struck with her twin sister to trade places like they were in Parent Trap ended up feeling more like a mouse trap instead.
I don't want to say too much because I don't want to spoil anything, but I have a LOT of thoughts. First, I loved the bullying element at the beginning of the book (and also the way that Ryan got revenge on Brylee). So many bully books either don't go there, or end up feeling way too over the top. I thought McBride did a good job picking out humiliating punishments that felt like something a privileged high school or college asshole might select for their enemies.
This is also one of the more feminist-friendly dark romances I've read. Madison is a great character and she stands up for herself in a way that a lot of heroines in books of this genre don't. That's not to say that it plays the PC card or anything like that, but it does have some diversity (hero has a neurodivergent younger sister, heroine has a Black friend, etc.), the heroine stands up for her principles, and she has a really healthy and awesome friendship with another girl named Bex. I loved that, and how it felt effortless.
Also, HOLY SHIT. The twists. Every time I thought I knew where this book was going, it veered away and left me speechless. I wasn't expecting this to take a sort of mafia twist, but it did. Kind of like The Royals of Forsyth, but better thought out, because this kind of nailed the unscrupulous sociopathy of the jaded billionaire elite in a way that those books did not (even though I enjoyed them). The ending literally had me panicking and THANK GOD book three is out because otherwise I could not even.
I don't have a lot of criticisms for this book, actually, because it was so well done and I loved the development of Madison as a character, and also as a love interest pairing for Ryan. All of the characters have really interesting narrative ARCs and I appreciated that a lot as a reader. My only qualms were that this book just felt a little bit too long, and a lot of that felt like maybe it was because it was padded out with too many sex scenes. I love a good sex scene but the second half felt like it was basically nonstop. Also, this is not technically a college romance the way it is advertised as on Amazon because the heroine herself is in high school (albeit, a high school senior). Her boyfriend is, though.
So overall, this was a pretty amazing read. I think it's right up there with Royals of Forsyth and Zodiac Academy in terms of being pure delicious brain candy, and it's very well written with some very clever dialogue and some memorable characters who make me care about them even when I want to strangle them (except for Gary; Gary needs to be run over by a semi). I'm soooo excited for book three in this universe and hope the author has some other books under her studded belt, because I NEED MORE.
You know when you're ordering a really strong drink from a bar, and it's got a lot more alcohol in it than you thought, to the point that you can almost taste the hangover over the rum and artificial fruit, and you think to yourself, "This is a bad idea" but then drink it anyway, and order another because YOLO? That's me every time I pick up a new adult book. I tell myself, "Nenia, you're going to regret this, don't do it, you're not going to like it."
But trashy erotica novels, like booze, are easy to do to excess.
This is my second book by Penelope Douglas. The first I've read from her was CORRUPT, and that was lent to me by a kind GR friend via Kindle. I thought CORRUPT was okay, with reservations. I don't normally go in for erotica, especially erotica that reads like straight-up porn. All the men in that book were misogynistic and rapey, too, which added another level of nope. But the plot was decent and she was good at setting a decent pace, so I sort of half-enjoyed, half-wtf'd my way through the thing and at the end of the book, I wasn't mad. It was a flawed but decent read.
PUNK 57 I bought myself, which already means that I'm going to be an eensy bit more critical of it because I'm spending my hard-earned money on the book and judging it accordingly. PUNK 57 was our book of the month in the Unapologetic Romance Readers group for April, and as someone who had read her work previously, I was interested in seeing how it had changed from CORRUPT.
***WARNING: SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT***
PUNK 57 is about two characters, Misha and Ryen, who are both in high school. They are also pen pals, although they have never met face to face before. Misha is punk and in a band and has piercings. Ryen is a cheerleader and preppy and into things like TWILIGHT and HARRY POTTER. After a tragedy happens in his life, Misha ends up going to Ryen's school under the name Masen for reasons that don't actually have anything to do with Ryen. When he realizes that she's not what he built her up to be on his imaginary pedestal, he gets angry and embarks on a mission to make her life hell. This, I actually didn't mind so much. It reminded me of Hana Yori Dango. A-hole heroes are actually a weakness of mine provided that a) the heroine reacts to this behavior accordingly and b) it takes a heck of a lot of groveling before the characters finally end up together.
This does not happen in PUNK 57. Ryen is attracted to this mean behavior, despite herself, and the two of them have several sex scenes that have this really uncomfortable element that was also present in CORRUPT that is neither healthy nor entirely consensual (at least, that's how it felt to me). And it wasn't the fact that it wasn't 100% consensual at times that bothered me so much as the fact that Ryen seemed to be embracing this behavior as natural and something she needed. Example: at one point Misha/Masen breaks into her house while she's sleeping and catches her in bed naked. He assumes, naturally, that any woman who is naked must be entertaining male company, and makes an effort of looking around for that Other Man. When he realizes that she was actually masturbating, he asks her if she was thinking of him. Me, I'd be on the phone with the cops well before that point, but she lets him watch. Ew. He's also constantly getting physical with her and making her feel bad about herself, whether it's berating her for being fake or criticizing her clothes for being too sexy - because how dare she bring male attention upon herself. Like it's her fault for them looking or some BS. In keeping with this "me man, woman mine" caveman attitude, the sex is always big man alpha sex, of the cervix-slamming variety (you know the kind I mean) and I know some people enjoy this, and that's fine, but that isn't my cup of tea at all. I rolled my eyes a lot. Especially when they try anal - without lube - and all she feels is a tiny burn. Ha! Woman must have Superman's butthole if he can go in dry and not cause her any pain, that's all I'm going to say.
I will say that the twist at the end with Misha's mom took me off-guard. I wasn't expecting that, although in hindsight it explains a lot. Like I said before, with CORRUPT, plotting isn't a weakness of Ms. Douglas's. But the confrontation and the way it was carried out left a similarly bad taste in my mouth, because it was a perfect mirror of his behavior towards Ryen and how it was actually pretty abusive. Misha is one of those guys who expects women to behave in certain ways, and if they violate that way at all, they are automatically bad. Ryen failed to live up to his sweet nerdy girl fantasy, so she becomes the whore in his eyes. Misha's mom couldn't take motherhood, so she becomes the horrible bitch who is responsible for all the problems in his life. It's the Madonna/whore complex, and I hate the Madonna/whore complex. Also, I'm realizing that I kind of hate Misha. I didn't want him to have an HEA with the heroine, because in my opinion, he never redeemed himself. He played the "Baby, I'm damaged" card and she completely bought it, final sale.
Two things I did like (so this review ends on a positive note): I like how the author incorporates music into her stories. That was something I liked about CORRUPT as well, especially since her taste in music is pretty similar to mine. I also liked how she had characters from CORRUPT cameo in PUNK 57, even if it was the creeps. Am I surprised that Misha knows/is friends with those creeps? No. He's a creep, too. Creeps of a feather flock together. (No, bad Nenia - stay positive!)
I didn't hate this book. I was afraid I would, but I didn't. Bar a few typos, it was fairly well written and had an interesting story. As much as I gripe, I must admit that I wasn't bored while reading it. It also has a Colleen Hoover-esque title whose meaning becomes clear at some point in the story, which is cool. Like Colleen Hoover, I think this author is capable of writing something some day that I will really enjoy. I like dark fiction, and I like suspense novels. She just needs to fine-tune the way she writes her heroes and sex scenes, and then we'll be golden.
You know when you're ordering a really strong drink from a bar, and it's got a lot more alcohol in it than you thought, to the point that you can almost taste the hangover over the rum and artificial fruit, and you think to yourself, "This is a bad idea" but then drink it anyway, and order another because YOLO? That's me every time I pick up a new adult book. I tell myself, "Nenia, you're going to regret this, don't do it, you're not going to like it."
But trashy erotica novels, like booze, are easy to do to excess.
This is my second book by Penelope Douglas. The first I've read from her was CORRUPT, and that was lent to me by a kind GR friend via Kindle. I thought CORRUPT was okay, with reservations. I don't normally go in for erotica, especially erotica that reads like straight-up porn. All the men in that book were misogynistic and rapey, too, which added another level of nope. But the plot was decent and she was good at setting a decent pace, so I sort of half-enjoyed, half-wtf'd my way through the thing and at the end of the book, I wasn't mad. It was a flawed but decent read.
PUNK 57 I bought myself, which already means that I'm going to be an eensy bit more critical of it because I'm spending my hard-earned money on the book and judging it accordingly. PUNK 57 was our book of the month in the Unapologetic Romance Readers group for April, and as someone who had read her work previously, I was interested in seeing how it had changed from CORRUPT.
***WARNING: SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT***
PUNK 57 is about two characters, Misha and Ryen, who are both in high school. They are also pen pals, although they have never met face to face before. Misha is punk and in a band and has piercings. Ryen is a cheerleader and preppy and into things like TWILIGHT and HARRY POTTER. After a tragedy happens in his life, Misha ends up going to Ryen's school under the name Masen for reasons that don't actually have anything to do with Ryen. When he realizes that she's not what he built her up to be on his imaginary pedestal, he gets angry and embarks on a mission to make her life hell. This, I actually didn't mind so much. It reminded me of Hana Yori Dango. A-hole heroes are actually a weakness of mine provided that a) the heroine reacts to this behavior accordingly and b) it takes a heck of a lot of groveling before the characters finally end up together.
This does not happen in PUNK 57. Ryen is attracted to this mean behavior, despite herself, and the two of them have several sex scenes that have this really uncomfortable element that was also present in CORRUPT that is neither healthy nor entirely consensual (at least, that's how it felt to me). And it wasn't the fact that it wasn't 100% consensual at times that bothered me so much as the fact that Ryen seemed to be embracing this behavior as natural and something she needed. Example: at one point Misha/Masen breaks into her house while she's sleeping and catches her in bed naked. He assumes, naturally, that any woman who is naked must be entertaining male company, and makes an effort of looking around for that Other Man. When he realizes that she was actually masturbating, he asks her if she was thinking of him. Me, I'd be on the phone with the cops well before that point, but she lets him watch. Ew. He's also constantly getting physical with her and making her feel bad about herself, whether it's berating her for being fake or criticizing her clothes for being too sexy - because how dare she bring male attention upon herself. Like it's her fault for them looking or some BS. In keeping with this "me man, woman mine" caveman attitude, the sex is always big man alpha sex, of the cervix-slamming variety (you know the kind I mean) and I know some people enjoy this, and that's fine, but that isn't my cup of tea at all. I rolled my eyes a lot. Especially when they try anal - without lube - and all she feels is a tiny burn. Ha! Woman must have Superman's butthole if he can go in dry and not cause her any pain, that's all I'm going to say.
I will say that the twist at the end with Misha's mom took me off-guard. I wasn't expecting that, although in hindsight it explains a lot. Like I said before, with CORRUPT, plotting isn't a weakness of Ms. Douglas's. But the confrontation and the way it was carried out left a similarly bad taste in my mouth, because it was a perfect mirror of his behavior towards Ryen and how it was actually pretty abusive. Misha is one of those guys who expects women to behave in certain ways, and if they violate that way at all, they are automatically bad. Ryen failed to live up to his sweet nerdy girl fantasy, so she becomes the whore in his eyes. Misha's mom couldn't take motherhood, so she becomes the horrible bitch who is responsible for all the problems in his life. It's the Madonna/whore complex, and I hate the Madonna/whore complex. Also, I'm realizing that I kind of hate Misha. I didn't want him to have an HEA with the heroine, because in my opinion, he never redeemed himself. He played the "Baby, I'm damaged" card and she completely bought it, final sale.
Two things I did like (so this review ends on a positive note): I like how the author incorporates music into her stories. That was something I liked about CORRUPT as well, especially since her taste in music is pretty similar to mine. I also liked how she had characters from CORRUPT cameo in PUNK 57, even if it was the creeps. Am I surprised that Misha knows/is friends with those creeps? No. He's a creep, too. Creeps of a feather flock together. (No, bad Nenia - stay positive!)
I didn't hate this book. I was afraid I would, but I didn't. Bar a few typos, it was fairly well written and had an interesting story. As much as I gripe, I must admit that I wasn't bored while reading it. It also has a Colleen Hoover-esque title whose meaning becomes clear at some point in the story, which is cool. Like Colleen Hoover, I think this author is capable of writing something some day that I will really enjoy. I like dark fiction, and I like suspense novels. She just needs to fine-tune the way she writes her heroes and sex scenes, and then we'll be golden.
I saw this recommended as a suggested read for another book I had enjoyed and the pretty cover and summary intrigued me enough that I was eager to pick this up (plus it's named after an awesome song). MAD WORLD is about Madison, a girl from the proverbial side of the tracks and daughter of a drug addict, who lives in a double-wide trailer. One day, she sees a news article about a girl who looks just like her named Madelaine, except this girl is the daughter of a rich business tycoon and has the whole world wrapped around her finger. But-- coincidentally enough-- they have the same birthday.
When Madison reaches out to her, Madelaine eventually writes back. The two of them realize that they are twins separated at birth, and Madelaine decides that wouldn't it be fun if they Parent Trap it and swap places for a couple months to meet each others' parents and get a taste of each others' lives? Madison reluctantly agrees and is instantly thrown into the shark-infested waters of her twin's polished life, and comes to the disturbing realization that actually, Madelaine is kind of a bitch. And soon, she's a dead bitch.
Now Madison is the only twin left and her father expects her to take her sister's place. But with an entire school that hates her for reasons that she still isn't clear on, and a fiance who seems to think her lower than slime, all of the varnish of this shiny new life has abruptly peeled off, and Madison starts to realize that a gilded cage is still a cage.
So I really enjoyed this book. Was it a perfect read? No. But I ate up every moment of it. The pacing and suspense were excellent and I loved the attention the author paid to every character, not just the mains. Unlike a lot of heroines in these bully romance stories, I liked that there were some valid reasons for the bullying in question, and I liked the heroine's feminist streak. She also had some really great female friendships in here, especially with Bex, and that's something I love to see. I also liked the romance, although the author brands this as a "college bully romance," and it really isn't. It's set in the heroine's senior year of high school. If I had known it was a high school romance, I probably wouldn't have picked it up, because I don't like reading smutty high school stories. The author was pretty tasteful about it, though. The book doesn't get smutty until after the heroine turns eighteen, and most of the focus of the book is on the building of romance and emotional connection, which I really appreciated.
While reading, I waffled between a four and five star rating. It did a couple things that annoy me, like the use of whisper-scream and whisper-hiss (please don't), and sometimes the dialogue could be a little canned or corny (especially during sex scenes). Plus, it straight up lied to me about being set in college. But for the most part, this was just really addicting and fun, in the same way that Zodiac Academy and Royals of Forsyth were addicting and fun, and it won me over to a genre of books that I don't typically like or enjoy reading. With a cliffhanger that cruel, I will absolutely be diving into the next book in the series very soon. Thank God it's already out. I feel so, so sorry for the people who were reading these in real time and had to wait.
ARCHER'S VOICE is a romance I'd been hearing a lot about and it topped so many best romance lists that I was curious to see what all the hype is about. Thanks to Lover of Romance for buddy-reading this with me. Lately, I've been feeling so unmotivated to read at times that I feel like I need other people around to hold me accountable. Now that I've read the book, I have some very mixed feelings, because while there were some things it did really well, there were some other things that left me with kind of a sour taste in my mouth.
Bree is a college graduate who has come to the small town of Pelion to find peace. It's a small town that she visited with her dad and she has good memories there, and she hopes to make more as she embarks on a path of healing. In Pelion, she meets Archer, a mute twenty-three year old man who lives as a hermit in his isolated cabin. It's basically lust for both of them at first sight, and his silence and trauma intrigues Bree, as she alternately treats him like a sexual object and a puzzle that she must figure out.
Here's the thing. I do see why this book is popular and it's an entertaining story. But I think it mostly will appeal to people for the same reasons that they like Colleen Hoover: it doesn't really challenge the status quo and it plays upon the readers' emotions to get you to care about the characters. I really wish there had been more depth to Archer as a human being. This book doesn't quite feel like savior porn but it certainly feels like it maybe shares the same zip code at times. Would Bree still feel the same attraction to Archer if he didn't look like a Greek god? Is he a project for her to fix? Does his silence just allow her to think of him as a tabula rasa, where she can project her own needs and interpretations on him? At one point, she says that the world would be a better place if more people were quiet like Archer, because of the focus on needing to hear THEIR voices, but in all of their interactions, Bree is the dominant voice, so this sort of sentiment ends up feeling a little hypocritical and problematic.
Bree has trauma as well and her backstory is very sad. I thought that it was interesting that her father was deaf and that because of this, she is able to sign with Archer. Some people didn't like this coincidence but I think it sort of worked and I guess it provided the author an out from having to come up with other ways for them to communicate. One thing I didn't like, however, is that her PTSD is immediately "cured" the first time she and Archer have sex. She used to associate storms with her father's murder and her own near-rape but after having sex with Archer in a storm, she's just like, "Wow, now I'll only think of you during storms." That felt way too easy and I didn't like that. I also felt like it was reprehensibly irresponsible of Bree to tell Archer, "Oh, I'm on the pill so we don't need condoms," because yeah, that protects against pregnancy but not STDs. She thinks she won't get anything from Archer because he's a virgin but SHE could give HIM something. So irresponsible. Ugh.
Now that I've gotten all of my dislikes out of the way, I will say that the small town setting was really well done. It gave me a fix for an itch that started for me by reading books like AIN'T SHE SWEET? and BAD DECISIONS. I think it adds a lot of tension, having people embark on a relationship in a place where everyone wants to be in your business-- especially if one of the people has a bad reputation. I also thought that Archer's back story was super sad and interesting. I would be willing to read a prequel book that showed the battle over Alyssa, even if it tore my heart out. And Tori was SUCH a great villain. I hated her so much. Travis was awful too, although the author sort of tried to redeem him at the end. Supposedly there's another book about him? Maybe that's why.
Overall, ARCHER'S VOICE was not a bad book. If you like CoHo and weepy new adult stories, I think you'll like this. It's certainly one of the better books I've read in this genre, which is not a genre I usually enjoy, so the fact that I liked it speaks highly in its favor. Could it have been better? Yes. Did it have its problems? Yes. But it passed the time and it tried to deliver some good messages about giving people second chances and looking beneath the (admittedly beautiful) surface, so I mean, it tried. I'm not going to kick it while it's down for that. Not a bad book at all but not entirely worth the hype for me, either.
Eve Dangerfield has become a new favorite of mine with books like ACT YOUR AGE and VELVET CRUELTY. VELVET CRUELTY was an especial surprise to me, because it had so many tropes I normally don't like in romance. The overly innocent heroine and RH mafia premise should have put me off, but it ended up being a pretty action-packed adventure, even if the answer to the "do they bang question?" was technically not. Which is a surprising twist for an erotic romance. Also, I thought it was hilarious that this was a Snow White retelling, but with four mob guys. Disney Princesses really can't stay sweet and innocent for very long in the mobverse.
I was SO excited to get my hands on SILK MALICE, so my whole week was made when the author sent me an ARC a couple days before I planned on buying myself a copy. What a glorious end to a rather exhausting day. Naturally, I started reading immediately. SILK MALICE starts where the last book left off. January has been kidnapped by her evil ex-fiance, and is starting to realize that she feels more for the men who kidnapped her than she should. They feel the same-- not that they'd admit it-- and are willing to move hell and earth to get her back.
SILK MALICE is paced very differently than the first book. It's a lot slower. The beginning was great but then 75% of the middle is basically just smut and romantic confessions. It's not badly done, but it felt like I was launched from Point A to Point C and we'd skipped over a Point B somewhere. I wish the guys' feelings had been taken into account more. It felt like there should have been more of a transition from obsession to tenderness. Book one was SO DARK and it was like January just forgot a lot of the bad stuff they did to her. I didn't get mad about the bad stuff, because it suited the story, but the tonal shift in this story made me blink and think to myself, "But what about all the bad stuff?"
The last quarter of the book is where the story really finally starts to find its footing. There's some real plot. January starts to show more of the spine I expected her to show from the beginning of this book. The scene in the living room and by the swimming pool were particularly good. I loved the contract scene and the epilogue left me with chills. They were little glimpses of the things that hooked me in book one-- clever tongue-in-cheek satire of a genre that also works as a standalone, witty banter, and action-packed, morally grey situations. SILK MALICE is a decent sequel but it's not as good as the first book and mostly feels like set-up for the third book, which is a problem that a lot of second books share. I'll definitely be reading LACE VENGEANCE and hoping all kinds of bad stuff happens to Zachery Parker. Maybe Ms. Dangerfield will even make January the one who gets to hold the knife.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
This was one of the most insane and ridiculous things I've ever read and yet somehow, I enjoyed it the way I enjoyed The Royals of Forsyth series. It's a dark reverse harem romance about a bunch of scary mafia guys and it starts with a wedding that gets messed up Kill Bill style. While choosing which of this author's books I wanted to read, I was scanning through the samples and this one hooked me instantly.
VELVET CRUELTY is a retelling of Snow White. January Whitehall is an innocent eighteen-year-old woman who is naive about literally everything (to the point of stupidity, really), sings and chirps and sounds like a kitten during sex, and who enjoys cooking and cleaning as a pastime. I honestly feel like this is supposed to be satire, having read this author's other books where the heroines where smart, intelligent women in STEM, so the whole thing kind of feels like the author is doing a loving parody of the dark romance genre where all the characters are just continually winking at the audience.
She's kidnapped by four dudes who have a grudge against her fiance. At first they plan on killing her, but when they find out she's a virgin, they have other plans in mind. The rest of the book kind of devolves into a competitive free-for-all where they all vie to be her first. One thing I liked was how each of the guys-- Basher/Bobby, Domenico/Doc, Eli/Elliot, and Adriano/Adri all had distinct personalities. January was so helpless and naive that it could be painful reading things from her POV; I liked the guys' POVs better; they were hilarious because of how few f***s they had to give.
This is definitely very different from the author's usual works in terms of tone. Her other books are more straightforward BDSM erotica with a light, jokey tone running through them, but this was a straightforward dark romance with dub-con and has all of the usual caveats with the genre and some additional ones (think DEN OF VIPERS but infinitely better written). It honestly speaks to the talent of the author that she was able to take such a farfetched and ridiculous premise and make me speed through it in twenty-four hours while putting the sequel down on lock. I probably would have given it five stars if January had more of a personality and dialogue that went beyond "um," "no," and "please." But even she had her moments. That scene with the Orchard completely cracked me up. Go Jan.
Geraldine, like horseradish and '90s Eurodance music, is one of those things that is better in small doses. That said, after the devastation of CURSED FATES, obviously I needed some fluffy flounders in my life, and where better to get that than with some Geraldine/Max action. Which the book totally delivered on by the way.
This book starts with Gerry and Max hooking up during the lunar eclipse and ends with a surprise birthday party for Tory and Darcy. Definitely don't read this until after book five because it contains spoilers for books 3-5 (major ones). The sex is honestly pretty bad with Geraldine narrating but it's interesting to know that she's a dominant. Seeing her tussle with Maxy and his barracuda was pretty entertaining and it's sweet how into her weirdness he is.
Not sure what else to say about this book, tbh. It's short but still delivers on fun bonus content and is a nice reprieve from the angstfest that was CURSED FATES. Geraldine is still the best but man, thank goodness the authors deal her out in small doses.
The summary of APATHY really intrigued me because I am a sucker for books about small towns with big secrets (although it's SO vague! It doesn't tell me anything about the book! Tell me about the boooook!). At first, I was really into it, though. The heroine, Skylar, is damaged and messy and kind of traumatized. She's sleeping with someone who's using her and providing her with the drugs she's addicted to. The town is hiding something sinister that nobody talks about, but that results in burned down buildings and bodies.
DUN, DUN, DUN.
Then we meet the hero, Ash. Ash, like the heroine, is descended from one of the founding families. But unlike the others, his has fallen from grace and he's here for revenge. Falling for Skylar doesn't really factor into his plans but he's not the kind of guy who plays by the rules. He's the kind of guy who is, shall we say, apathetic to the rules. So pretty soon she and him have a thing going on, and it's a path of hookups and messy parties as they work their way towards revenge. Also there's another guy who's interested in Skylar named Kane, and there's sort of a thing there, too. Omg, so much drama, Bizarro CW-style!
Like I said, the beginning was pretty good. But I feel like the author was trying a little too hard to make this book edgier than it needed to be. Sometimes less is more. I also wish she'd led with the whole cult angle because it's so obvious what's going on from the beginning that it doesn't make sense to play coy. Especially since Skylar grew up immersed in it, so it's not like it's a secret. The unreliable narrator device can work in books like these, but for that to be the case, I think Skylar might have had to either (a) have some sort of dissociative amnesia or (b) be taking way harder and more frequent drugs. I also didn't really love how quick the romance between Ash and Skylar moved. I get that they're in high school but I didn't really understand the connection between them, especially since Ash is as forceful as Skylar's abuser and she's so damaged... I don't know, for her sake, I just wanted her to find someone who at least made her feel more protected if he was going to use her so rough. :'(
I might have liked this more if I hadn't read RITUAL SINS and A PALE SHADOW first (by Anne Stuart and Heather Crews, respectively). I love a good book about creepy twisted cults and this one was almost there, but I just didn't love the romance enough to want to continue. I'm really picky about my dark romances though and this book seems to have found a loyal following, so it might just be me.
I wasn't expecting the Zodiac Academy series to be so addictive. Seriously, I mostly just picked it up hoping to laugh at it and maybe enjoy it a little bit. Cut to me sinking hundreds of hours reading thousands of pages of these books like a total sucker. Irony, I don't know her. But seriously, these books are pure crack. They have all the fun escapism of the Harry Potter series, only without the TERF guilt. It reminds me of this time I was on a luxe cruise ship pregaming with my friends and drank five glasses of champagne (don't judge me). It felt good going down until it didn't and suddenly, BOOM. Hungover and seasick, leaving in the middle of a surf n' turf dinner to worship at the altar of ultimate regret. The moral here is that bingeing five things in a row probably isn't a good idea, especially if they might be more intense than you fully realize. Case in point: these books.
This book continues where the last one leaves off, with heartbreak and betrayal. The last book ended on such an emotionally wrenching note that I needed a bit of a breather before diving into this one. In this book, CURSED FATES, we learn the full effects of what it means to be Star Crossed, which was kind of foreshadowed in one of the earlier books. Which makes this 800+ page tome a veritable BRICK of angst, where we watch our ill-fated couple bite their nails and fight back lust over their inability to be together. Hard to watch? I THINK SO. (Alexa, play Bishop Briggs's "Never Tear Us Apart.")
I actually think this book is a lot better than the previous one. There's still way too many unnecessary POVs (which I hear gets worse in later books), but I loved the development between the Vega twins and the Heirs. Someone told me that this is when they finally start to work together for the greater good of the kingdom and yeah, I see it. The transition from hatred to wary alliance was really well done, and I liked it. I also liked that we got more insight for Tory's behavior in this book. She's not an easy character to like but I don't hate her as much as other readers do because I think if you read between the lines it's easy to see how circumstances have made her distrustful and leery, and how much she's hurting. There's also a totally hot threesome in this book which I'm normally not into, but it's kind of been foreshadowed/hinted at in previous books and I thought the authors did a good job with it.
Some other random thoughts: Washer is still gross but I think I might hate Professor Highspell even more. It was so satisfying to see Kylie finally get her comeuppance even if it was late in coming, but that's okay because I have Mildred to hate instead. I KNEW the Orion/Darcy ship was getting too cozy and I'm not even surprised that the authors decided to fuck with it to cause me pain. Darkmore prison seems even worse than Azkaban and I'm super excited to read the spin-off series set there. There's some more world-building and twists in this book that were shocking AF, especially that ending. Holy FUCK. Just when I think the book can't hurt me anymore, it finds a new way to twist my arm. Also, Lionel is so gross and needs to DIE. It's been a while since I wished death for a character so badly. Loved the plot twist with Gabriel though, although I swear, that dude is allergic to shirts.
Romantic angst is the primary conflict in this book but I'm excited for the new stakes being delivered to the kingdom of Solaria and how the boys and the girls will band together to stop the threat. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to be nursing this glass of port while moping to Smile Empty Soul (I think I might have just given my age away with that music reference, whoops).
I've been bingeing this series over the last week or so because it's just that addictive. The last time I read something that was this cheesy but emotionally wrenching was during my college manga phase. You think anime is all fun and games until you decide to read the entire Hana Yori Dango series in one summer and find yourself drinking wine by the glass and clawing out your hair in chunks. Then you know pain.
SHADOW PRINCESS is book four in the Zodiac Academy series. Book three, THE RECKONING, was my absolute favorite book in the series so far-- it was action-packed, dramatic, emotional, and stunning, with character development and the answers to questions that had been steadily building over the previous books. SHADOW PRINCESS, on the other hand, is... the weakest? Ah, don't hate me!
But, like, seriously. I've been Tory's staunch defender for the last couple books. I know she has real emotional pain and boy, does this book prove it. And even though she has some of the best lines in these books, she is also such a stubborn fool. Her sleeping around doesn't bother me, but her emotional pigheadedness does, as does her constant need to be a jerk and never change. Darcy has changed a lot over the four books. You can tell that she's on the verge of becoming the powerful woman she'll one day be: she doesn't take any shit, she's nuturing, and there's an emotional maturity to her that Tory really lacks. It makes it really, really hard to like Tory, who doesn't change. She just remains a self-centered asshole who insults everyone to cover up the pain inside.
And don't even get me started on Darius, who is literally the exact same way. They're both Sad Dracos in Leather Pants, I swear to God. Every time I find myself warming to the guy, he does something stupid. Maybe I just don't like him because I was shipping Tory and Caleb and this feels like a reprise of the Rhysand/Tamlin situation that put me off the ACOTAR books. I don't like it when one ship kind of feels like end game, only for the author(s) to play a big switcheroo. That said, the ending legitimately made me tear up and scream, NOOOOOOO. I would hate to be a reader picking these up as they were coming out and wondering what was going to happen next. I mean, really.
So why three stars instead of four? This book started to feel really dialed in. There were too many POVs. I didn't need to see Max mooning over Geraldine. I don't really care about Max. I also don't really care about Seth. In fact, I hate Seth and this book just made me hate him more. I actually preferred it when the books were mostly just in Tory and Darcy's POVs. It was more fun for me when you could only guess at what was going on in the guys' heads. Subtlety is an underappreciated art form. I found myself skimming chunks of these books and noticing a lot of repetition. The word "growl" and its various iterations are used 175 times and smirk was used 121 times, just to give you a taste. I was pressed to look it up when I noticed the words "I smirked" TWICE on the same page.
Also, Washer doesn't need that many cameos. He's gross. I don't want it. Stahp.
ALSO, why do they celebrate Christmas? Is there a Faerie Jesus?
If a man was stranded for a full week in the desert with no food or water, he still wouldn't be as thirsty as these boys. This was hornier than Love Island. THE AWAKENING AS TOLD BY THE BOYS is exactly what it promises to be: it's a retelling of the first book in the Zodiac Academy series retold from the POVs of the four Heirs plus Orion. I guess because that book was exclusively told from Darcy and Tory's POV and in later books, the authors started cramming the other POVs in whether we wanted them or not (hi Seth).
After the events of book four, I was not emotionally ready to continue onward in the series, so I thought it would behoove me to remember how this all began. And to the authors' credits, there were certain scenes I did really enjoy. Finding out the Orion basically scored Darcy a free top-shelf drink (my mans <3), his instant lust for a certain twin's blood while he's hauling their asses into the school, the moment he claims her as a Source, Gabriel arranging things so that he can save Darcy and come to her sister's rescue for big man brownie points. Oh whoops, look, all my favorite moments were about Orion. HOW ABOUT THAT.
That isn't to say that there weren't other scenes I liked. It was fun seeing the Heirs reacting to the Vega twins that first time, and I liked the beginning scene when Darius and Orion are hunting nymphs. I think this book also shows Darius's pain a little more and the protective feelings he has for both Xavier and Orion. I really hated him in the first two books, but then all those feelings transferred to Seth, who can fuck right off any time he wants. I'll even be there to make sure his tail gets slammed in the door on his way out. But seriously, Seth is the worst. :) The only redeeming value he has is that he sort of has a thing going on with Caleb and I like them together. Seth is literally only good when he's with his friends.
Did this book NEED to be written? No. Most of the book is about the guys wandering around with erections while shaking a fist at the sky and shouting VEGAS the way Timmy's dad shouts DINKLEBERG in Fairly Odd Parents. I knew going in that it was probably going to be a lot of thirsting and pining, but I was literally not prepared. This book is pure fan service. I probably would have liked it if it were a bit more subtle and had more scenes that didn't involve 'roid rage-fueled lust, but I know I'm not most people. But it was way too long and reading this just made me realize how much I prefer reading things from the girls' POVs instead of the boys'.
If you heard a loud YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASS echoing in the distance, that was me. Best book in the series so far? I THINK SO. But I knew it would be, because the title shares the name of one of my favorite songs by Halestorm. #foreshadowing
I began Zodiac Academy on a whim a couple days ago, only to get sucked in. It has everything I love in a story: magic, danger, action, romance, strong heroines, dangerous men, and well-placed humor. Picture Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield fighting their way through Vampire Academy against Hana Yori Dango's Elite Four while using Harry Potter spells, and that's basically the whole premise in a nutshell. Darcy and Tory Vega are the long-lost princesses of the fae kingdom and they're enrolled in school to prove their worth before they can claim their inheritance and their throne. But the four elemental heirs who grasped power in the void aren't willing to give up their legacy. If they can't rule, no one can.
One of the things that makes this so much richer than other bully romances is because of how the sisters fight back. Their acts of revenge are truly brilliant and some of them wreak pretty devastating results on the boys. When one of the boys in this book finds out who was responsible, he FLIPS THE FUCK OUT, and boy is it satisfying to watch. It isn't often that you get to see a female character commit that kind of betrayal, so I loved that. And the Heirs deserve it.
Some of the stand-outs about this book were the introduction of Hell Week: a week of hazing before the students go through The Reckoning, a series of Goblet of Fire-esque challenges to test the mettle of the students and see if they're worthy of enrollment. Also, one of my ships FINALLY banged, and that was royally satisfying on so many levels and didn't disappoint. There's actually a lot of smut in this book, to the point where I might have to start calling it Smut Academy. I know some people don't like Tory for being more promiscuous than Darcy but YOU KNOW??? She should get some, if that's what she wants. The vampire sex games she plays with Caleb were hot. And Darcy and Orion are the MVPs.
Some other random thoughts: Professor Washer and his sex toys literally scarred me for life. Seeing the fae getting all horned up during the lunar eclipse was hilarious. I will never not laugh when Caleb gets mad at people for thinking he has a pegasus fetish. Geraldine and Sofia are the BEST and I love them. Xavier must be protected at all costs. I want to go to a Fairy Fair. AND AND AND we finally get to find out what Darcy and Tory's Order is... and it is PERFECT. Look at me being all good and not spoilering you the way I DESPERATELY, DESPERATELY want to. I'm being good for your sake. So you'll read these books too and be as awed and astounded as I am.
But God. That cliffhanger. Everything has changed now.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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