Reviews with content warning for Physical abuse - The Unseelie Prince

God I don’t know how this book was such an incredible train wreck. Like, the beginning? So good! Loved the scorned wife dynamic she had going. And then I really couldn’t understand the pace or the story of this book. Nothing made sense. The timeline was so horribly horribly off. There was a chunk in the middle that was just so bad that I stopped reading for like 4 months. The ending??? Pisses me off. But only because there’s a second book and honestly I would have liked it if that was the end honestly. Read those triggers because holy shit.

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gabby_reads3232's review against another edition

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2.0

Okay so let me just start off by saying this book sounded like something right down my alley. Dark male character. Witty spitfire female main character that practices witchcraft. But he threatens to SA her for literally no reason, multiple times, and he toys with her like a cat and mouse games. I just couldn’t give this book a higher rating for that reason. SA is no joke nor something you should include in your books without a trigger warning

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madelinelindy's review against another edition

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dark fast-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

2.5

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baroo92's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Pretty much just a fun smutty romp if you're into a dark antihero. (As a heads up though, this book is primarily just a lot of teasing- not much actual Action if you get my drift.) The dark prince is, in fact, largely a bad person and does some pretty fucked up things to confirm to the MC that that is his true self. For me personally, I preferred that over books that show a bad-guy-turned-good... sometimes it's fine for bad people to just know themselves as bad people! It happens! I do appreciate though that the author regularly emphasized that consent would still be required for actually serious physical action. Even bad guys respect consent!

I found the MC a little exhausting, but the world building and the plot's main mystery kept me hooked, even if I initially started as an ironic read.

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acreatureofbooksandtea's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

1.0

So I genuinely hated everything about this book. Aside from the FMC, who was just generally unremarkable and unmemorable.
The start of the book was basically the same as the end of the book. There was no character growth or plot progression. It genuinely felt like I had just completely wasted my time reading through the book.

The MMC had no redeemable or likable qualities. He spends much of the story sexually harassing and assaulting the FMC, or putting her life in mortal danger while he goes off to take a nap. His whole plan is to use her to further his own goals—which will require him killing her—but wants to make sure he can use her for sex fist.
When he's not sexually harassing the FMC, he's enjoying the hell out of himself by killing. Everyone. Indiscriminately. In the most brutal ways possible. One scene in particular, he tortures and skins alive a 10-year-old boy before turning him into a monster, and he's having such a good time while he does it.

The FMC goes through one life threatening situation after another in this story, is constantly injured and hurt, and is forced throughout the entire story to go through extreme mental and emotional torment. She's treated as nothing but a playing by the MMC and a pawn by almost everyone else in the story, and because of the MMC she is always being target by someone or something trying to kill her. Or in one case, rape her and then kill her.

I picked this book up because the cover was beautiful, and it was listed as a fantasy romance. This story is not a romance. Nothing romantic, loving, or even consensually sexual happens between the MCs in this book. They lust after each other, and that's it.
The focus of the story is the MMC's aspirations for power, and the FMC trying to find a way out of the world of the fae. Ultimately neither of their plans come to fruition, and at the end of the book

the FMC commits suicide by walking into a field of carnivorous flowers and allowing them to burrow their vines into her body and consume her from the inside out

, which is something I wasn't expecting and really wished I could have avoided reading about.

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