Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Always Practice Safe Hex

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Always Practice Safe Hex by Juliette Cross

6 reviews

rebakesl's review

dark hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Extra spicy for the series so far, and darker than expected. Could have used some stronger content warnings at the beginning of the book, but a great HEA.

Content Warnings

jrod4322's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Somehow more horny than the previous books, probably because of the initial rivalry of Livvy and Gareth. It is kind of an inworld set-up with the whole "Grim auras bring dark urges to the surface and Influencers can make people like them automatically" deal, so their own denial of actual attraction at first is a bit funny. But I liked the tried and true method of building closeness by spending time with each other and actually getting to know one another in order to get to a point where screwing each other's brains out isn't a mental exercise in compartmentalized. Both MCs get good characterization movement, and the plot moves at a good pace too.

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kittykels's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

3.0

I thought this book would be my book. Broody, dark, mysterious supernatural man that's extremely dominant and has shadow tentacles? I couldn't ask for anything more.

But this story lacked a lot of interest. Even a straightforward, low-stakes story needs something interesting to drive the plot forward and

a random dude who wants to SA and murder the FMC just doesn't do it for me. We barely even see him and he's barely even a threat, except for at the end for like, 2 seconds. I'm glad it didn't get graphic or worse than it was, that's not what I wanted

. But I just didn't like this as the plot or the conflict.

I also thought the

shaving

scene was weird. I know it's supposed to be an intimate moment between them, but it was just cringe to me.

Someone said these books get better but I think it's the opposite. In the first book, the silly YA language made sense because the FMC was depicted as young-at-heart and nerdy and the MMC loved her in all her weird and quirky glory. The other sisters aren't supposed to have this same personality yet the language has stayed the same, and it seems to be just the language the author writes in. These women are supposed to be in their late 30s at least, yet they're all speaking like teens. Even some of the male characters, who are even older, will sometimes use this immature language. I just don't like that this would be the generic language choice for a bunch of supernatural adults who are supposed to be cool and sexy and serious. It doesn't add up, except in Evie's case.

Lastly I have to mention the song choices. A lot of the songs mentioned I was familiar with, but one of them, the one Gareth mouths to Livvy while they're dancing, I hadn't heard of before and looked it up because it sounded like a song I would really enjoy. I wish I wouldn't have because despite liking the song, it was a terrible mental image picturing Gareth singing that to her. I feel like setting Gareth up to be dark, serious, and dominant and then having him do something like this (among other things) was a really poor and out-of-character choice. A simple change to Livvy being the one to sing the song to him would have made it less weird. Maybe I'm nitpicking at this point, but I really wanted to love this series so I'm just a bit disappointed.

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