Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - God of Malice

82 | B- | 3.8 ★ | Good

Look, can I recommend this book wholeheartedly? No, which is why it's 3.75 and not a 4 star. I urge you to read the trigger warnings - they're not there for nothing. This book is chock full of non-con and sexual violence committed by none other than our male lead, so if that's something you're going to find hard to deal with - skip this one.

I have to admit I had no idea what I was getting into. TikTok has been absolutely bombarding me with videos about this series (specifically, book 5), and I admit it—I caved to peer pressure. But surprisingly, I had a lot of ~~messed up~~ fun with this one. It fucked-up, toxic, and depraved, and if I had to be around a man like that, I'd probably lose my effing mind, but reading about him with a woman that somehow finds all of that attractive? very enjoyable.

Is it the best book I have ever read? Nope. Did I still devour it in 2 days? Absolutely! It just... strangely worked. Most of it.

So what did work?

Oddly enough, Glyn and Killian's relationship. Again, it's rather fucked up. But they match each other's freak, you know? I also really enjoyed the relationship within the friend/family group. Again, there are a lot of issues and a lot of tension, but also a lot of love in various different shapes. Also, at this point in the narrative, if anyone hurts Bran, I will need to throw hands. Veeeery excited for his book.

So what didn't work?

Some plot parts. Mainly anything to do with Devlin, really. For someone who had such a big impact on Glyn's life, he is such a noncharacter. We get almost nothing about him in the narrative. We don't even have any meaningful flashbacks of their friendship. Killian's character has more character than this dude. How did they meet? How did they connect? What would they talk about? What happened that last night? Ziltch, nada.

What we do get, once the so-very-surprisingly revelation that he's alive (said sarcastically) is made, is that apparently, he's a dumb piece of shit. And I do mean DUMB, because wtf did he think was going to happen? I thought he had some master plan, some trap laid up for the boys. But nope, he just got beat up in 5 seconds. So anti-climactic.

Also, the folks POV felt really contrived and out of place to me, but I assume it's because I haven't read their books. I'm sure that with that context, it feels.... more aligned with the story, I guess.

Plot - 16/20
Characters - 17/20
Relationships - 16/20
Writing - 15/20
Reading Experience - 18/20
Final score: 82