Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - Vicious Prince

just to preface, this book has a lot of triggering content so make extra sure you're okay with reading this before you pick it up. ronan and teal were definitely more interesting and likeable as characters but i don't like the way their trauma was written. it felt like a cheap prop and attempt at using shock value to keep readers interested and i wish sensitive topics like these were given more effort + respect. the pacing of this book was odd too, again it was riddled with spelling/grammar mistakes, but it might just be because it's on the shorter side so it felt rushed. i did enjoy this more than all the other books in this series though.

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rinabinawu's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

4.5

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gaymoonreader's review

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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? Yes

3.75

TW: Child SA, trauma, child abuse, PTSD

I really enjoyed this book, but I will say it was one of the least cohesive and consistent in terms of the plot. It kind of seemed all over the place, in my opinion. But with that being said, I really loved Teal and Ronan together. I love the chemistry between these two, and I think Teal is my favorite of our MCs thus far. She doesn't seem as untouchable or as unreachable as some of the other ones have been, such as Silver or Elsa (Kim is a close second for me, though).

Ronan is genuinely one of the best of the guys in general when it comes to Rina Kent's books. Take it from someone who has read a lot of them. Pretty much every single guy MC has varying degrees of possessiveness, controlling behavior, and issues when it comes to what I would say is informed consent. It's dubious at best most times. While Ronan is possessive, I didn't really see issues of informed consent or controlling behavior, and he also is genuinely a good guy who has feelings and isn't somewhere on the scale of sociopathy and/or psychopathy. (Xander is another exception to this, which is one of the reasons Kim and Xander are a close second for me in terms of favorite couples of this series). While he absolutely can be a dick at times, he's not actually possibly a clinical psychopath like I would say Aiden is (to some degree). He's not perfect, of course, but he is my favorite of the guys.

As for more on Teal, I got the sense that whether intentionally done or not, she was autism-coded, meaning she is somewhere on the autism spectrum. I could totally be incorrect here, and I welcome discussion on this point (and any point in this review!), but as someone who knows a lot of people on the spectrum and tries their best to be knowledgeable about it, there were a few things that could potentially mean she is on the spectrum. The first thing that made me consider this is generally how she processes not only her own emotions but in how she processes and tries to understand the emotions of others. It's stated several times throughout the book that she has to study facial expressions to pick up on the emotions of others and she sometimes has issues articulating and identifying how she emotionally responds to situations. That to me said she could be on the autism spectrum.

In addition to this, she also states a few times throughout the book that she feels very misunderstood and it's implied that she almost has an innate fear of people misunderstanding her (but when people in her life genuinely understand why she reminds to certain situations the way she does it makes her so happy). This could absolutely just be the author trying to show that she is a traumatized teenager who is coping the only way she can, but in my opinion it could also be showing a sign of being on the spectrum. The last thing is something that genuinely can be attributed to a lot of other mental illnesses, so take it with a grain of salt (you can take all of this with a grain of salt actually since I am someone who is not autistic and thus cannot truly speak to this representation in the book). She has certain special interests or hyperfixations that could possibly be attributed to autism (but I am very aware this could also be attributed to many other mental illnesses). This theory could totally be off-base, but this was something I was thinking about while I was reading the book, so take it with a huge grain of salt.

As for the plot, I was a little lost in trying to see if there actually was one. Sometimes there is with Rina's books and sometimes there isn't. It felt like there was an attempt at having a plot, but it all got rushed at the end. The ending in general was extremely rushed, and given that this book is less than 300 pages, had there been more to work with the plot might have actually worked, but it fell flat for me unfortunately because it wasn't executed well.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, though I wouldn't go so far as to say it's my favorite of the series. I will also say that I had to skip past the SA scenes because of my own trauma so please be aware those are in this book, so use your own judgment about whether that is something you want to read about! If you are able to read about those topics and dont mind spicy scenes, this might be an interesting one to pick up, but I also acknowledge it's not for everyone!

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