Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

Vicious by L.J. Shen

3 reviews

csantos's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I usually like dark, angsty romance books with loads of pining and morally grey characters and this book had all of that but it just wasn’t for me. The MMC is abusive and immature. The FMC is strong-willed and smart until she gets around the MMC. He treated her like crap and I didn’t think his explanations and apologizes are realistically forgivable. I feel like this book romanticizes control and abuse. The side characters, the MMC’s so-called friends are awful, misogynistic, and just as cruel as the MMC. No redemption to be found for any character. I don’t think villainous characters necessarily need to be redeemed all the time, but it was clear that’s what the author was trying to do, and it just fell flat. 
This is supposed to be a stand alone with other interconnected novels, but it doesn’t read as a stand alone. The author kept referring to things that happened in the prequel or that will happen in previous novels that makes it so you have to read the other novels to understand what’s happening in this one. That’s not what an interconnected standalone is. I shouldn’t have to read all the others to understand one of them. I don’t care enough for this work to even bother with the other books but I kept having to check that I was reading the first book in the series because so many things confused me. If you want to give this a chance, maybe read the prequel first. I feel like it will clear up the confusion, though I am not invested enough in these trash characters to care. 

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dalmak's review against another edition

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1.0

when i tell you this man was VILE. his nickname should have been that because he was worse than just vicious. i think i could go on and on about why this book was horrible. and i will.
first of all, mmc was absolutely horrible. he had no redeeming traits besides SOMETIMES being sweet to the fmc.
it took him until half of the book the act decently towards any character (and it was his love interest, not his friends). mans treated his friends horribly. not sure why they stuck around him. it was only in the last 100 pages that he continuously treated her and the people around him decently. i was also not a fan of the whole power imbalance they had going on when she worked for him.
he’s a horrible person and needs some (a lot of) fucking therapy before he gets with anyone.
second, i hated the whole
dean thing. it was so unnecessary and weird at some points. it would have been acceptable if he didn’t go and thirst over the fmc’s sister???? he literally dated and had sex w the fmc and now he’s gonna do the same to her sister in the second book. that’s gross.

third, the plot really lacked. i guess the whole he’s rich she’s poor thing came through but none of the other shit did. the build up to the reveal of his trauma wasn’t terrible but then it was used to excuse his actions (which were not excusable).
fourth, it’s not really related to this book (they were background characters) but can we talk about jaime and his wife???? he married and had a kid with his english lit teacher!!!! that’s disgusting. idc if he was of age it’s still so predatory.

i don’t know what this author is on but it can’t be good. all in all i do not recommend and i am not planning to read any more books from this series. not only is the main couple incredible toxic, it also gives a bad impression of how relationships should work. whatever. i give it one star bc there were some cute scenes. (though the bad ones seriously outweighed them) also i did like the fmc.

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golden_like_dior's review against another edition

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

3.75

Actually a good dark romance with some little things that personally annoyed me. 

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