Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Gild

I should've stopped reading on page one when I learned that the harem was called saddles. But alas I continued, and I will never get the hours back that I spent reading this book.

My takeaways:
FMC has TENTACLES. another spot I should've just shut the kindle down at.
A golden cage is still a cage. This is repeated constantly, just in case you forget.
All men are r-pists and/or don't care about women. The 1-2 who aren't were killed off, because men are bad or they're dead.
Bright side? Bright side.
The use of the word "cum" thrown in for shock effect when there's actually very little cursing in this book.
Did anything actually happen in this book? I blacked out around tentacles.
FMC was whiny, useless, and overall unlikable. The author did a great job telling us how things felt rather than showing us through emotion on the page. I felt like I was watching a TV show rather than reading a book. Which, if this is a device where we readers are watching FMC through the cage and in subsequent novels gets better as she breaks free, that's incredible. But I'm not going to waste money buying the rest to find out.
The author felt like she had a point about grooming, trafficking, poverty, and misogyny, but missed the mark entirely. Perhaps these opinions would be best spent on nonfiction writing or opinion pieces rather than... Whatever this was.

F*ckin tentacles, man. </Spoiler>

Content Warnings

viselik's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.25

The book does have its issues, and I think it you know what you are getting into it's fine. But please read the content warning, this book is definitely not alright for younger readers who don't know what they are getting into!

The first time I read this I did not know it had the content in it that it did due to me skipping over the content warning and I finished the book feeling like I had missed something and felt icky. I only figured it out once I read the content warning that I had accidentally skipped and reread the book that it clicked what had actually happened, it wasn't what I expected and made me like the book a whole lot more than I originally did.

Content Warnings

feuchtitive's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.75

Why did I read this?

Content Warnings

booshort's review against another edition

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I think I got around 10% in and DNF’d it.

I then VERY VAGUELY skimmed the rest of the book. By that, I mean I searched up summaries, reviews, and recaps and then did not regret sticking this one out.

I think this book has the most serious trigger warnings I’ve read (/skimmed). TW FOR DESCRIPTIVE RAPE SCENE. Ya I’m good with avoiding that thanks. I found the writing very juvenile to an almost mocking degree. It sometimes came off more satirical of a dark fantasy romance, rather than and *actual* dark fantasy romance.

I’ve heard each book gets better; I might continue, I might not. But I know for sure I won’t continue any time soon.

Content Warnings

lifeofchrstnlvly's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

hbae's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

filipa_maia's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I have mixed feelings about this book.

I do appreciate this other side of the story. This is not King Midas' story (the one that everyone knows), it's someone else's... someone very important that stays in the shadows. Also, I very much enjoyed all this mystery around Auren, there is an aura of secrets involving her that kept me very focus till the end. Solving this mystery is exactly one of the things that is going to make me read the second book.

On a less positive note, this book is very hard to read: maybe I was distracted or maybe the trigger warnings weren't enough... I almost quit reading this book. Several times. I understand that women weren't seen as people, especially these women being King Midas' harem... but there is a less brutal way of describing some scenes. Honestly, the excessive use of some words were not to emphasise the narrative, but just to trigger the reader.

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