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taneetraxo's review
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Torture, Suicide, Child death, Death of parent, and Gun violence
ashleycmms's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Grief, Gun violence, Violence, Sexual content, and Murder
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Child death
now_booking's review
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This was quite a journey. The premise is that high class gang kingpin, Nas, is still in mourning 3 years after the loss of his pregnant partner but needs a plus one date for his sister’s wedding . When he goes to the most exclusive escort service in the city, he finds that the only person he’s interested in is the owner. What starts off as a fake relationship, single bed trope builds into a dangerous love story where Nas’ organised crime affiliations put Dae into a messy situation.
I’ve at this point read stak a couple of other books by this author and have somewhat of a sense of what I think her style is, but this one is certainly my favourite even though in some parts And it’s strange because I never quite liked the main title character, Nas. I of course liked that he was a dream hero with an abundance of confidence, good looks, power, and all the typical resources that make up a romantic hero etc. But he was arrogant and immature in some ways, I couldn’t like. I tolerated him because of how hard he loved the heroine, but overall I wasn’t a huge fan. The heroine, Dae,on the other hand was quite likeable. Unfortunately, despite the fact that she had a lot of great things going on in her life (a fabulously successful business, wealth, status, independence, a killer wardrobe, good looks and basically the aspirations of any romance heroine), she was constantly minimized with odd adjectives applied to her like “timidity” and “awe” or a degree of uncertainty that didn’t quite gel with the level of boss babe we’re told that she is. She is clearly a main character, but this never really felt enough like her story. It felt like the world the author created belonged to Nas and Dae was just living in it as a romantic foil for him. She didn’t really ever talk to anyone other than him, she seemed to have no friends or no one to talk to apart from her sus AF friend. It was a bit strange but that said, she was likeable and I was rooting for her throughout.
I had to suspend my disbelief around the need for the shared bedroom and fake relationship. It didn’t really make sense since they were not keeping their actual relationship status a secret. There were frequently moments when I saw rational conflicts between what was presented and what would have made sense. Another example would have been at the club, where did the 50-11 bodyguards go etc etc. Why does Nas have 2 Bachelor’s degrees and a PhD and we never hear what his PhD is about or why he he actually bothered and what he wanted out of that.
Overall, I thought this had a few teething issues but was quite good and has made me more excited about the author’s previous books.
I’ve at this point read stak a couple of other books by this author and have somewhat of a sense of what I think her style is, but this one is certainly my favourite even though in some parts And it’s strange because I never quite liked the main title character, Nas. I of course liked that he was a dream hero with an abundance of confidence, good looks, power, and all the typical resources that make up a romantic hero etc. But he was arrogant and immature in some ways, I couldn’t like. I tolerated him because of how hard he loved the heroine, but overall I wasn’t a huge fan. The heroine, Dae,on the other hand was quite likeable. Unfortunately, despite the fact that she had a lot of great things going on in her life (a fabulously successful business, wealth, status, independence, a killer wardrobe, good looks and basically the aspirations of any romance heroine), she was constantly minimized with odd adjectives applied to her like “timidity” and “awe” or a degree of uncertainty that didn’t quite gel with the level of boss babe we’re told that she is. She is clearly a main character, but this never really felt enough like her story. It felt like the world the author created belonged to Nas and Dae was just living in it as a romantic foil for him. She didn’t really ever talk to anyone other than him, she seemed to have no friends or no one to talk to apart from her sus AF friend. It was a bit strange but that said, she was likeable and I was rooting for her throughout.
I had to suspend my disbelief around the need for the shared bedroom and fake relationship. It didn’t really make sense since they were not keeping their actual relationship status a secret. There were frequently moments when I saw rational conflicts between what was presented and what would have made sense. Another example would have been at the club, where did the 50-11 bodyguards go etc etc. Why does Nas have 2 Bachelor’s degrees and a PhD and we never hear what his PhD is about or why he he actually bothered and what he wanted out of that.
Overall, I thought this had a few teething issues but was quite good and has made me more excited about the author’s previous books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Toxic friendship, Blood, Death, Violence, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and Trafficking
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