thumbs up

twisted and exciting, never quite see what's around the corner and not disappointed when you find out.

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Trigger warning seriously needed

The narrator leaves a lot to be desired. Especially with her horrible mispronounced words. Don't even get me started on the Latin. The story itself is hairpullingly frustrating because you just want to know once what the fuck is going on. And don't go into book 2 thinking you'll get the answers you seek...you just get more questions.

With everyone telling this stupid girl to read "the book" why the hell does she never read the book? The amount she's read so far would have taken less than an hour. But in 2 books, and with 2 months away where she is doing nothing, why the fuck hasn't she read the book that holds all the answers to her life.

I picked this series cause it came up under reverse harem, erotica. It is not that. Not at all. It is horrifying and I can only imagine the author was abused as a child or knows someone who was cause the retelling feels very personal. So yeah this book needs a huge trigger warning for child abuse, rape, and a bunch of other shit.

I find the writing style incredibly repetitive, using the same idioms again and again. If I have to hear one more time about how someone smiled but it didn't reach their eyes I'm going to stab someone in the face (if you make it to the end of this book you'll get that). But at the same time I think I like some of the characters...if I didn't have to hear them through the incredibly awful voice of the narrator. Except the main character, Maddison continually does the dumbest shit you can think of and I want to shoot her in the head. I kind of semi hoped she'd die in this book or at least that this book would end her part of the story.

One positive I will give the first two books is there is some damn funny dark humour. I laughed fully out loud on many occasions. As a fan of dark humour it may have been funnier to me than to some others but there are some really well written gems amongst the crap. I want to say I won't listen to the 3rd book but I will. I need to know if they answer any of the questions or fill any of the 5 million plot holes. But I also know the 4th book isn't about Maddie so I'm crossing my fingers for the end of her storyline ...I don't care if she dies...I just want some answers.

I think what is so disappointing is that the storyline had serious potential and it just isn't being reached. That's definitely partially the writing obviously...but really isn't helped by the voice of the narrator. PS A little trick I use, speed the book up, it becomes far more tolerable.

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confusing

so many plots within plots, hoping that next book clears them up. don't get me wrong, I do enjoy these types of books, but when the main charactor does things that make you say "just read the darn book!" it gets frustrating.

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COME ON!

Lucy Rivers' mispronunciations are annoying.
Amo Jones, how much suspense of disbelief were you expecting from your readers?
Let me count the number of times these first two books annoyed me:
1. Book One ends and I'm blinking, looking around, nothing was brought to conclusion.
2. The MC's stupidity is boundless. "oh I'm going to trust this person who just tried to kill me" Really?
3. Mysterious "connections" to Bishop and Nate? But no mysterious connection to Brantley or the eldest brother who's name I heard 5 minutes ago and have already forgotten? (one whom she's met before on numerous occasions and one who should resemble her in some capacity... but nothing.)
4. The number of missing persons.
5. It's the CIA, no wait it's a cult, no wait there are sociopathic serial killers everywhere, no wait it's a cult of sociopathic serial killers! *eye roll* Define the bad guys already! Don't change things every couple of chapters.
6. Random brutality with sex... what? And somehow this is her kink and she's down with it....? There wasn't enough character development to go from A to Z. It's all rape and abuse boarding on snuff... how does this get an erotica tag?
7. Everything is hinging on this ancient, rare, hand written book, with no title... that she magically discovers in the high school library?! Have you ever been IN a high school library? And she hasn't finished reading it over the course of TWO books.
Half way through Book Two, I said "if she doesn't finish this damn book, I'm out". Well, I'm out.
8. OH! I almost forgot... "2nd amendment" "mah rights" drips off of this one. barf. As an international reader... *eye brow* The author needs to crawl out from their American world view and look around once in a while. I'm sure every author wants to her that their readers stop and go, "oh for christ sake it's a crazy american, do I even want to keep reading." If it was an actual paper book, I would have stopped reading instead of rolling my eyes.

Two books of word soup, I have no take aways, and am far to annoyed to entertain a third book of this nonsense, never mind getting into a whole series. ugh! What a waste.

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Unsettling themes, unlikable characters, chaotic plot.

Not here to yuck anyone’s yum, but this book and it’s predecessor, Silver Swan, is an odd and chaotic story of terrible people being awful to each other. In-depth erotic scenes with teenagers is really outside my comfort zone. Rampant misogyny from the boys and girls, and all kinds of problematic boundary crossing is also not my thing. The relationships are hard to believe as there’s little convincing development and the characters lack depth and nuance (with the exception of the protagonist, who has some depth, but is still hard to like).

I do like the plot in general that is part mystery, part secret society, and I think that has a lot of potential to go very interesting places.

Some plot points feel a little soap-opera inspired, but that’s ok. We love the drama. I really wish they were older than high school kids, as I think that would solve some problems and make them feel a little more believable.

In short, I don’t think I’m the target audience here, and the books need all the trigger warnings.

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