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goldenleafbooks's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- 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? No
5.0
I could not put this book down. I absolutely adored the characters. Misery being naive to Lowe's feelings was truly believable, which is something that I feel like a lot of authors struggle to pull off.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, Confinement, Blood, War, Xenophobia, Torture, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Cursing, Colonisation, Classism, Bullying, and Abandonment
Moderate: Medical content and Gaslighting
kendoftheworld's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- 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
4.0
As an aroace enby who is sometimes sex-repulsed, I always find myself amused and simultaneously horrified when reading extremely cishet romance novels … but maybe not for the expected reasons.
Things I liked: Serena, Sparkles, and Owen. That Owen’s final speech to their father is basically soft-coded for “I plan to not make America great again, I plan to make America comfortably insignificant again,” which, *finger snaps.* That none of the women in this book are in any sort of competition with each other. That platonic same-sex friendship is maybe the only major plot point. (I don’t consider sex a plot point, but that’s me.)
Things I didn’t: Basically, the main Romance (and specifically Omegaverse) Thing™️ where really good sex is a) the whole point of the book, b) fundamentally transformative, c) what every normal person is built for, and d) where all the meaning and belonging of life is stored up for folks to experience.
As I mentioned, I’m an aroace enby. I will never experience romance or sex the same way as an allosexual, and I have been raised like everyone else to see romance and sex as extremely meaningful—more meaningful than platonic friendship, because the book never climaxes or ends on platonic friendship even if the author considers it important. The book never ends with someone trying to figure out if life is going to ever be as meaningful for them as everyone else, simply because they’re not built to experience love the same way. And in a book where that *exact* question is raised repeatedly, as a result of biological difference, it’s even more heartbreaking for the conclusion to be “I’d totally still love you if you didn’t love me back or experience love the same way—but isn’t it awesome that we do, in the end, feel the same way for each other and were silly silly people for thinking we were biologically incompatible and *didn’t* experience sex in all its mind-blowing fullness in essentially the same way?”
It’d be nice if someone were biologically compelled to really really like me, sexually and/or romantically, because then I could know for sure that life was meaningful and worth continuing for no other reason than that such relationships apparently make us feel it is worth continuing. It’s not Ali Hazelwood’s fault for amplifying this narrative since literally no one else I’ve ever read has managed anything else, but it does feel particularly galling here, perhaps because she *knows* and she wants to *try* at an inclusive romance. And we quite literally pay for romance books to be the way they are.
I’m not saying I hate being me right now, but I do always hate myself at least a little bit for being such a … (I’m laughing at myself here a bit) … misery melon about the whole thing.
I do dream of a world where a misery melon like me can find a meaningful ending in a romance book that doesn’t involve being transformed by mind-blowing sex, though.
Things I liked: Serena, Sparkles, and Owen. That Owen’s final speech to their father is basically soft-coded for “I plan to not make America great again, I plan to make America comfortably insignificant again,” which, *finger snaps.* That none of the women in this book are in any sort of competition with each other. That platonic same-sex friendship is maybe the only major plot point. (I don’t consider sex a plot point, but that’s me.)
Things I didn’t: Basically, the main Romance (and specifically Omegaverse) Thing™️ where really good sex is a) the whole point of the book, b) fundamentally transformative, c) what every normal person is built for, and d) where all the meaning and belonging of life is stored up for folks to experience.
As I mentioned, I’m an aroace enby. I will never experience romance or sex the same way as an allosexual, and I have been raised like everyone else to see romance and sex as extremely meaningful—more meaningful than platonic friendship, because the book never climaxes or ends on platonic friendship even if the author considers it important. The book never ends with someone trying to figure out if life is going to ever be as meaningful for them as everyone else, simply because they’re not built to experience love the same way. And in a book where that *exact* question is raised repeatedly, as a result of biological difference, it’s even more heartbreaking for the conclusion to be “I’d totally still love you if you didn’t love me back or experience love the same way—but isn’t it awesome that we do, in the end, feel the same way for each other and were silly silly people for thinking we were biologically incompatible and *didn’t* experience sex in all its mind-blowing fullness in essentially the same way?”
It’d be nice if someone were biologically compelled to really really like me, sexually and/or romantically, because then I could know for sure that life was meaningful and worth continuing for no other reason than that such relationships apparently make us feel it is worth continuing. It’s not Ali Hazelwood’s fault for amplifying this narrative since literally no one else I’ve ever read has managed anything else, but it does feel particularly galling here, perhaps because she *knows* and she wants to *try* at an inclusive romance. And we quite literally pay for romance books to be the way they are.
I’m not saying I hate being me right now, but I do always hate myself at least a little bit for being such a … (I’m laughing at myself here a bit) … misery melon about the whole thing.
I do dream of a world where a misery melon like me can find a meaningful ending in a romance book that doesn’t involve being transformed by mind-blowing sex, though.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Blood, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Cursing and Abandonment
Minor: Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Car accident, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Dementia, Grief, Vomit, Colonisation, Confinement, Death, and Self harm
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