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agw622's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Like I don't hate it, but I also didn't love it, but I also want to read the next book!?!
I found it fine enough till the end. The main twist I didn't agree with, but maybe on a reread I will see it better.
I found it fine enough till the end. The main twist I didn't agree with, but maybe on a reread I will see it better.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, and Blood
imskylow's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
0.5
This is purely speculation, but methinks someone is paying for reviews because it is beyond me how many people have rated this book above 3 stars. Honestly, it's wild. This book is very poorly written and under-edited. It feels as though Jeneane had absolutely no beta readers or legitimate editors. After I realized fairly soon into the book that this belongs somewhere in the deep, dark depths of kindle unlimited, I decided to take a red pen to the book. I circled, marked, and crossed out miss spellings and redundancies, circled anything that was worded in a confusing unclear way, and marked up ever moment the story was at all unbelievable or disturbing, which was quite a bit even though I am a connoisseur of smut and fantasy. This book feels like a raw dream journal that never went through the creative process of making sense, which, in turn, made the story structure and dynamics hard to consume as a reader.
The introduction of the story takes a good 90 pages and the entire book isn't even 400 pages long! The characters are incredibly difficult to enjoy. The female main character is as flimsy and as fluid as water. You cannot get me to believe that a biologist, no matter how scatter-brained, would forget a high-end microscope (it's mentioned that it costs as much as a car) in the woods. You additionally cannot get me to believe that she would then not spare a second to change out of her "going out" clothes but instead wears a little black dress (that hardly covers her assets) and HEELS to go search the woods. Not only is Callie, the main character, ditsy but she morphs into different characters as the story proceeds suddenly having a "dark side" or suddenly having her one wish be that she find love, when initially, all this girl wanted was to swear off love and a personal life and join a society of wildlife biologists. Then we have Mendax, the Prince, who to be completely honest has no redeeming qualities. I understand that he's not meant to have any as a dark/villainous character but there should be SOMETHING that attracts the reader and FMC. Alas, there isn't. We don't even really get to know what Mendax looks like aside from dark hair and blue eyes. You don't even learn he has pointed ears even until page 216. Additionally, the way Jeneane describes his "smoke wings" causes me to believe she doesn't know what wings are. I struggle to imagine wings you can grab and choke someone with. There is no build up in the romance of the story.
With the love story, Mendax flips like a coin. He goes from hating Callie and all humankind to not being able to live without her and waxing embarrassingly poetic. It's cringey and riddled with cliches that belong on 2014 Wattpad. However, their first "romantic" interaction isn't even all that romantic. He eats her out pushing her face into a blanket and the consent is very, very dubious. For the rest of the novel, Callie battles her 'feelings' for Mendax even though he is objectively awful and has subjected her to multiple types of abuse including maiming and the attempted r*pe from a forest bog. Within the love scenes between the two main characters, Jeneane seems to lose all sense of anatomy. I spent time rereading multiple instances in which Mendax would need at least three hands to maneuver as described.
I understand what Jeneane was trying to accomplish here. I do. The short synopsis actually drew me in! I love bad boys and magical bad boys are even better. However, this book needed several more drafts and professional eyes before publishing.
Lastly, the next time Jeneane O'Riley writes the word 'amber' will be much, much to soon.
The introduction of the story takes a good 90 pages and the entire book isn't even 400 pages long! The characters are incredibly difficult to enjoy. The female main character is as flimsy and as fluid as water. You cannot get me to believe that a biologist, no matter how scatter-brained, would forget a high-end microscope (it's mentioned that it costs as much as a car) in the woods. You additionally cannot get me to believe that she would then not spare a second to change out of her "going out" clothes but instead wears a little black dress (that hardly covers her assets) and HEELS to go search the woods. Not only is Callie, the main character, ditsy but she morphs into different characters as the story proceeds suddenly having a "dark side" or suddenly having her one wish be that she find love, when initially, all this girl wanted was to swear off love and a personal life and join a society of wildlife biologists. Then we have Mendax, the Prince, who to be completely honest has no redeeming qualities. I understand that he's not meant to have any as a dark/villainous character but there should be SOMETHING that attracts the reader and FMC. Alas, there isn't. We don't even really get to know what Mendax looks like aside from dark hair and blue eyes. You don't even learn he has pointed ears even until page 216. Additionally, the way Jeneane describes his "smoke wings" causes me to believe she doesn't know what wings are. I struggle to imagine wings you can grab and choke someone with. There is no build up in the romance of the story.
With the love story, Mendax flips like a coin. He goes from hating Callie and all humankind to not being able to live without her and waxing embarrassingly poetic. It's cringey and riddled with cliches that belong on 2014 Wattpad. However, their first "romantic" interaction isn't even all that romantic. He eats her out pushing her face into a blanket and the consent is very, very dubious. For the rest of the novel, Callie battles her 'feelings' for Mendax even though he is objectively awful and has subjected her to multiple types of abuse including maiming and the attempted r*pe from a forest bog. Within the love scenes between the two main characters, Jeneane seems to lose all sense of anatomy. I spent time rereading multiple instances in which Mendax would need at least three hands to maneuver as described.
I understand what Jeneane was trying to accomplish here. I do. The short synopsis actually drew me in! I love bad boys and magical bad boys are even better. However, this book needed several more drafts and professional eyes before publishing.
Lastly, the next time Jeneane O'Riley writes the word 'amber' will be much, much to soon.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Confinement, Blood, and Torture
Minor: Rape
_lexis_library_'s review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, and Gore
Moderate: Sexual assault
dilani's review
how many times is this dude gonna say the FMC’s skin is “soft”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault and Violence
caseyka98's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
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? It's complicated
4.0
The plot twist was PLOT TWISTING!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Torture, Physical abuse, Sexual content, and Violence
catspajamas15's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
Everything happened so slow but so fast at the same time, I'm still kind of confused of the progression of everything.
First off, our main character, Callie, is just the worst. She's a disney princess and has a way with animals, all the men adore her and want to date her, she doesn't use curse words (unless it's for something dirty, but that's just quickly sidestepped), she's blonde and blue eyed and she's skinny, but she has CURVES but she's petite, but she has AMAZING cleavage. Like UGH.
Our MMC is just a brute who we're supposed to like, but he's just arrogant and downright abusive so it's hard to garner any sympathy for him. If this was supposed to be an enemies to lovers, it failed miserably because one second they're *literally* trying to kill each other and the next they're making out. It made me cross eyed.
The twist ending that I heard about on social media was just disappointing and didn't come together well since this was a 1st person POV. Callie doesn't give enough of her own background and backstory for me to understand what happened at the end.
The author seems really confident in their work, and honestly - good for you, but A) she gave music recommendations for 3rd last chapter of the book (random?) and the dedication at the front of the book says, "My hope is not that you finish this book, but that this book finishes you." The confidence is just impressive.
I will not be returning for book two.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, Body horror, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Death, Domestic abuse, and Sexual harassment
simmy_books's review
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I’d give this book a 3.5 ⭐️, when I first started reading the book I was confused at first with the biological aspects but I enjoyed it because it was something fairly new to me and not my first choice but I found the story unique enough to continue. The plot twist wasn’t anything shocking to me, I predicted her “killing” the prince and suspected that she lost her memory and she was really an assassin. I was right that she was an assassin not that she lost her memory. All in all, Jeneane really said ENEMIES to lovers and that was the best part honestly and I liked her story enough to read the next book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Death, Murder, Torture, Misogyny, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Violence, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Vomit, and Emotional abuse
sarahsbookss's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Cursing, Gaslighting, Violence, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, War, Child death, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Death, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Vomit, Animal death, Body horror, Rape, Blood, Death of parent, Grief, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, and Toxic relationship
urtchen's review
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Kidnapping, Violence, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Rape
makenzielepore's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
The whole idea/ concept of the book was a great idea and very interesting, I just don’t think it was executed in the best way. The most “jaw dropping” part of the book was in the last 5 minutes of reading, and after reading the whole thing hoping for that big gut-punch, it didn’t hit the way I had hoped. It felt a little unoriginal all throughout the book until literally the last chapter. Not my favorite :((
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Violence