Reviews with content warning for Rape - Gothikana

I got an ARC for this book. It was advertised as dark academia with some romance and a bit of a murder mystery plot throw in. This is a goddamn lie and I’m gonna fight whoever at Bramble is responsible for this absolute garbage fire of a book being published. There is almost no plot until over 75% of the way through, exactly zero of the characters have any semblance of a personality, the romantic couple had no chemistry but everyone around them constantly talked about how much fiery chemistry they had(bitch where?), the “plot twist” in the last chapters is quite literally one of the dumbest, and most convoluted things I’ve ever read in my life and somehow included surprise incest. I would not recommend this book to my bitterest of enemies let alone any of my book reading friends. To any fans of this book, which I cannot possibly believe actually exist, I need to know who hurt y’all that this is what you think is good. I didn’t think it could get worse after I read Zodiac Academy last year but this book sure proved me wrong.

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flor3nce17's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Great plot. Had me hooked throughout, however, there were grammatical errors that confused me at times.

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krystlethegreat's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

So many things....
1. This book reads YA, until it doesn't. 🫣
🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶
2. The repetition of describing the same things, in exactly the same way, a couple of pages later, really pulled me out of the story. This was both entire paragraphs and just repeating the same specific adjective/phrase closely together.
3. Some sentences just didn't make sense. Or they did make sense after you reread them multiple times, but that's just not how a proper sentence is structured.

We never find out all of the mysteries. Like big-ish things that are a constant in the storyline or an event that we never get closure on. In the author's opening letter to the reader and in the author's note at the end, this is identified as intentional. It's really just annoying. The author personally identifies with lack of answers, however writing your own story gives you the chance to create answers!

Overall, I was looking for a gothic, dark academia romance... and what I got was a poorly edited story that didn't know it's audience or what actually happened inside of itself.

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mabellene's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense 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? Yes

3.5

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chaotic_hyperactive'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

4.75

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amelierawr's review against another edition

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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? No

1.0

I seriously don't know why the rating is so good, it was worse than bad- it's straight up horrible.
unhealthy dynamic, teacher-student relationship, terrible description of mental illness and let's not forget the rape downplayed as "it's always painful when you lose your virginity".
cannot wrap my head around how the ML stayed as a teacher even though rumors of him sleeping with students went around...like, what? how did he not get fired? no legal actions, nothing.

only good thing about the book is the actually not that bad of an idea the teacher-student relationship. both of them are adults, she is doing her graduation and he is doing his PhD while also teaching at the school. Still, there is an unhealthy power dynamic, which is problematic. Based on that premise itself, it could've been a really good *actual* "dark romance".

and ofc i have to consider the bad writing for my rating, bc eh

(didn't drop bc i was nearly finished anyway)

all in all,
1/10 - even Ben Shapiros trashy fascist novel was a better read

Content Warnings

dosxhime's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny mysterious tense 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? No

3.0

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