Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - God of Malice

Trigger Warnings (Book 1,2, and 3): S/A, suicide, violence, Knife/gun play, toxic family, manipulation, masochism, stalking, murder, arson, attempted murder, child abuse, primal kink. dub-con, kidnapping, etc etc.

I read every book in the series that's available, (God of Malice/ God of Pain / God of Wrath), and all I have to say is every book is a HEAVY Trigger Warning. Personally, I love dark romances, but I've never strayed further than angry/sunshine type of dark romance. This is actually the first time I've read something this heavy and I'm surprised I made it through Book #1.

About the Series:

Each book follows two POVS, with the endings including bonus POV's [and Epilogues] from other characters on the relationship between the main characters. The main characters are on an island attending Universities that are located side by side, separated by a wall. One side is rich-kid-central (UK), and the other side is Mafia-Galore (US). There is underground fighting, initiation nights where people are literally being hunted for sport, and a whole lot of sexual discoveries. The male love interest are sociopaths, psychopaths, and annoyingly possessive/obsessive over the love interest. There is also a lot of controlling and manipulation.

Thoughts:

I get that this is dark romance, however this series doesn't really involve any romantic/passionate themes that I read about in the reviews. (I assumed this was one of those tropes where the villain becomes soft for her type of book but it's not. lol oops. my bad!) The relationships between the characters felt forced. Trauma bonding, maybe? The characters are repetitive, and so is the story. For some reason the author is obsessed with writing virgin characters. I love the whole "evil villain finds love" trope but each book is basically copy-and-paste except for name changes and a few character details and assigned kink(s). Each book gets 2 stars because while this was unrealistic and repetitive, it delivered on the dark themes; and the author did influence me to try to stray further into the dark romance genre.

I'm honestly reaaaally curious on who the author plans to pair up with Landon. I have a guess, but the author could also do a 180 and completely kill off the conniving character. (I'm rooting for the 180.) Also, was the mystery member for the initiation ever mentioned because either I zoned out or completely erased that info from my mind???

Content Warnings

kaalex12's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

annie_m_12's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

4.0

Content Warnings

theyannibannireads's review against another edition

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dark slow-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

** spoiler alert ** note to self: i technically have finished this book but i'm adding it to my reads this year as a reward for making it past 60%. this book only works if you read this from the point of view of someones who has never had a human encounter ever. its like an AI program was feed every cheesy bad boy book/tv show every made and then told to write a book with theses tropes, villain main H, non con and alpha male dumassery. every character is over the top and don't react in a way most people would to an event/problem/conversation. , the main h is dumb and never makes a smart decision and the plot is not believable or logical in anyway but if thats what you like to read then you'll love this book. anyways i'll see if i finish the book. never trusting booktok again :)

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