Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Beautiful Bastard

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren

14 reviews

qgg's review against another edition

0.25

I read 10% of this book and it was workplace sexual assault with power play with **very** questionable consent. She works directly under him, he is purposefully mean to her because he’s attracted to her, he makes comments about her body and whether she works out just to be a jerk, he overworks her so she can’t take a break or eat, he forces her to work overtime so she has to do a presentation when no one else is around and then he gropes her, rips clothing off of her and assaults her during said presentation. Then the next day he wonders if she’ll slap him with a lawsuit, but she probably won’t because she so close to graduating with her MBA. This is so repulsive that I can’t possibly read more. Yet I had to mark it as read to put a full review and content warnings in.

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fairytales's review against another edition

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fast-paced

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

1.5

This book was an oof yikes (and I have rated another one of these authors’ books 5 stars). I skimmed and should have DNF’ed this. This dynamic is just hugely problematic and I couldn't put that aside when reading. I know they were going for an enemies to lovers work romance but a) it felt unrealistic with the way it jumps from 0 to 100 on the lust side at work and was clearly breaking a million rules and b) the beginning feels like a sexual harassment case not a romance.

He is literally her boss, it’s a huge power dynamic issue and he just touches her in a conference room without permission and no conversation from her indicating that she’s interested. Also so brazen—they seem remarkably unconcerned about being caught having sex multiple times on company property during the work day. Maybe this is fantasy fulfillment for some folks but I felt the plot didn't work. They could have considered having them at a bar with coworkers and made him be at the company but not her direct boss and it would have at least felt less like such a blatant violation of multiple workplace rules.

I think they should have done more to transition this from a fanfic to a book. This is showing me I am much more of a slow/medium burn romance gal and this much smut without feelings first is not for me.

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elliott_the_clementine's review against another edition

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Not my cup of tea (at least as a romance book). The love interest does not seem to care about consent or really about the heroine at all.

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nineinchnails's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.5

WOW… was not expecting this from the same people who gave us unhoneymooners but i am pleasantly surprised for sure

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crondeau_yvr's review against another edition

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dark medium-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

2.0

Meh… this book is just dumb. 90% sex and 10% plot.
I did have to go check out la perla though.

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cmj's review against another edition

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Boring. Incredibly boring. No character development at all and very flat characters.

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theemangomami's review against another edition

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My loan expired and I haven’t renewed it after 2 months and after sitting down one day it hit me, d*mn this book did not really do it for me. Yes, this book is supposed to be smutty but the storyline barely any substance and I’ve read fan fiction that had me more hot and bothered than this book.

the first sex scene wasn’t even 20 pgs in. No sexual tension or real romantic buildup, so it basically seemed to come out of the blue. Kinda like opening a first message on a dating app and it being a d*ck pic. After the third-ish sex scene I kinda just started skimming past them to try and follow the paper thin plot which just irked me due to the constant flip flopping between “I hate him/her” and “I want to jump into the deep end w/ this one” with the two main characters. Also the pivot from gage to love was wildly unrealistic which made it a little harder to read.

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stupidcat's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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dianaschmidty's review

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challenging funny tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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flygirl's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted 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? Yes

3.5

A saucy little office romance using the “enemies to lovers” troupe, will not disappoint in the imagination department.
<spoilers>
Chole has worked hard to get where she is at her firm and she’s very close to getting her MBA. But, suddenly, she finds herself in a compromising position with her boss. Yes, she should tell him no… but how can she when he looks that good and is that hard?? >
Don’t take that book too seriously and you will have fun with it.

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