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lexcellent's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.25
Graphic: Suicide, Violence, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic relationship, Murder, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Gaslighting
Minor: Sexual harassment, Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Stalking, and Sexual assault
raequigley's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Gore, Suicide, Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Death, Mental illness, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, Abortion, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Dementia, Child death, Toxic friendship, and Panic attacks/disorders
juno_reads18's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Toxic friendship and Suicide
direguard's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Chronic illness, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Blood, Sexual content, Suicide, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Cursing, Rape, Alcohol, Medical content, Vomit, Abandonment, Incest, and Sexual assault
lindsayhwrites's review against another edition
- 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
2.0
Graphic: Stalking, Vomit, Grief, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Dementia, Ableism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Suicide, Toxic friendship, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Incest
hobbit_at_heart's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The whole time I thought Vad Deverel was going to end up being a vampire or something and that never happened. So that was a touch disappointing. The smut could have been a touch better, but I won't complain.
I suck at reviews, but all-in-all, a good story. Definitely New Adult vibes. At first I was under the impression that this was set in an older timeline, however it was fairly modern with random things like the use of phones and internet was stuck in. Some of the writing was kind of cringy and I sped read through a LOT of fluffy bits that simply weren't all that necessary to have even been put into writing. Overall, good book. If Goodreads would do a 1/2 star system, this would be a solid 3.5 for me but I rounded up for the sake of having enjoyed the plot twist at the end bc I never would have seen it coming. Wild ride at the end!
HEA was corny as SHIT.
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Drug use, Gore, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Suicide, Mental illness, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Grief, Death, Death of parent, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Vomit, Medical content, and Stalking
Minor: Abortion, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, and Incest
_jas's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Death, Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic friendship, Murder, and Sexual content
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Grief
viselik's review against another edition
- 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
SCHIZOPHRENIA, SUICIDE, SELF-HARM, ABUSE, IFFY SEXUAL SITUATIONS OR INCEST
I would have done lower stars if I could. This book honestly handles the topics inside of it really poorly. If I wasn't so stubborn about my rule about finishing a book, I would have put this down after chapter 10.
I won't really go in-depth here as I'm not even comfortable remembering the book fully, would highly recommend The Book Leo's video here on this book as she states a lot of what I feel about this book but I'll give a quick rundown of my final thoughts on it.
Spoiler
The main cast of characters all feel quite childlike at times, I'm not quite sure about it. Even the teacher character Vad Deverell feels like this a lot of the time. Even more so on how jealous he gets over Troy or Jax who are both around 19 years old. Corvina (whose name is literally a fish) I can't even get started at how childlike she seemed, or just how unaware of the danger she could be in.
Also, why did it take until around chapter 16 to find out Vad's age? Why is the author hiding it? Not to mention it's only said once, compared to the several times the student's ages are given out or even the amount of times we are told Corvina is in her early 20s.
The author does state that she made Vad's character vague but having that doesn't excuse how one-dimensional he felt most of the time. Even when we are finding out about his backstory it didn't feel like it was helping his character, at times I even preferred now knowing as I was constantly thinking by the end if he was going to kill someone like he did his grandfather.
The main mystery of the book, the Black Ball held every 5 years and each time it's on someone goes missing... well this is never answered. Instead, we get an incest scene about our love interest Vad's crazy family member who wants to have his kids so they would have good 'devil' genes and could run the school. This same family member has caused at least 2 people to jump off the roof and tried to get our MC to do it as well, she does this via a drug... Yeah. I would highly not recommend this book to anyone.
The several sex scenes in this feel rather poorly written, there are a few moments floating around the internet about some of the lines from this book but as I've read I've noticed a few more. Quite a
lot of them are all in the sex scenes and their incessant need to mention madness, but this madness is never really described.
Another thing I noticed about this book, we get a lot of being told but not having it described at all. Like the music from chapter 2 I believe, it's said to be "Haunting. Eerie. Ethereal." though nothing else is really described about it. We don't even know it's a piano till we see the guy who is playing it.
If you are looking for sex scenes, please just go look at the porn without plot tag on AO3 you could probably find even better sex scenes without having to pay for them.
Graphic: Death of parent, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Incest, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Sexual assault
Moderate: Abandonment, Dementia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, and Pedophilia
- Consent is never given in one of the sex scenes. -anastashamarie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
So I honestly absolutely loved this book, despite a few nagging problems. If you like gothic dark romance and a dark academic setting, this is 1000% for you.
⚠️TWs: graphic depictions of loved ones completing suicide; explicit sexual content; student-professer; descriptions of hallucinations (possible psychosis); death
🌑 Things I loved: The dark academia setting -- immersive and majorly enthralling. The callbacks to classic gothic horror. The blurred line between paranormal and psychological. The different subplots that wove interestingly together. The passion/madness of the romantic relationship. Daddy Dom Vad.
🕯️ Things I didn't love:
🏰 Listen, maybe I'm biased because this book is exactly up my alley. Maybe it's all the years of pining to go to boarding school (I grew up in the era of the Gossip Girl and the Private novel series so it hits hard). Maybe it's that I went to a probably-haunted, very old university with all sorts of stories like these. Maybe Verenmore has me in its clutches, too. But maybe this is just a generally great book. The only way for you to know is to read it too.
Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, and Murder
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, and Gore
Minor: Dementia, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Child abuse
Taboo relationship (student/professer, both consenting adults)