Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - The Awakening

This is not a "bully romance". It’s pure abuse. Emotional, physical and sexual. The MCs say "no" all the time but they continue nonetheless because "the fae only respect power". They get lectured on the fact that they don’t know anything about their world, yet no one tells them anything, which also results in the reader having zero understanding of the world-building.

Also that hinting teacher/student relationship? Ick. Especially since he’s abusing her as well. 🤢

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faduma's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

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roget's review

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Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

One of those books where everyone’s aggressively sexual all the time and constantly smirking, and the predatory boys are maybe (?) facing something forcing them to act that way, but we still don’t know the larger power players at work by the end, and tbh you can’t really uwu soft boy your way out of the crap they put the Vega twins through. (The Vega twins are written as though they are the same person. Idk why there are two girls. They seem to just be the same girl twice.)

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rosierosereads's review

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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lemonysnicket's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I'm trying to give this a fair review but I hated it.

It's certainly dark but too dark for my taste.
Most of the actions are bordering on r*pe if not full on r*pe
Felt defeating as hell to read. Since this is a first person pov, by the time I was halfway through the book my self confidence was nonexistent. The first book seems to be all about the girls getting their ass handed to them.

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shorthannah's review

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

It is an intensely frustrating book which is addictive but for me personally it was too stressful to be fun to read due to the intensity of the bullying. The premise is really promising but it is let down by some serious cringe, such as the unimaginative teacher names (a fire element teacher called professor pyro, groundbreaking) and bad grammar. However, it is addictive and I am invested in hopefully seeing the Vegas get payback.

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cakeboxing's review

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adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS ALL KINDS OF NON-CONSENSUAL ACTS

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS AT THE END

I went into The Awakening with high hopes. It had been hyped up a lot online.

The premise is fantastic and had me excited from the start. Who wouldn't want to read an adult Harry Potter mixed with Avatar the Last Airbender mixed with Acotar?

The character and world building could use a lot of work. Also, there are waaaayyyyy too many direct references to outside works (Harry Potter, Downton Abbey, I think even Star Trek at one point?). It's not a subtle thing, they are literally referenced by publication name. Just a bit cringey in my opinion, but it was easy enough to dismiss.

One of the big things that made this a one off read instead of gunning for the whole series is that THIS BOOK NEEDS AN EDITOR. Seriously, it's like there wasn't anyone going over this book at all. So many grammatical, punctuation, tense, or even just spelling mistakes!! There was at least four alone in the first chapter!

Most of it I was able to brush off, little things I totally understand and I would have been willing to ignore for the sake of the plot. However, when I encounter several within a few sentences of each other it drives me insane. And that happened many many times throughout the book.

Things really started to fall apart for me at the 80% mark. I pushed through and finished it because of the sunk-cost fallacy, but I probably should have dnf'd this book.

As far as the plot goes, the whole book takes place over the span of like 3 weeks, and it's mostly focused on the drama and bullying between students instead of the actual learning, so if you're looking for something along the lines of adult Harry Potter (as it was marketed), you might want to look elsewhere.

- - - - - - - SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT - - - - - - -

A huge part of the premise is that the twins need to be able to pass The Reckoning at the end of the term or school year or something. We don't find out anything about it except that it's really difficult and super incredibly important that they pass. Everything in this book feels like it's leading up to The Reckoning, but then the book ends after an altercation and betrayal that happens during a school dance that is - surprise! - still at the beginning of the school year. Turns out that The Reckoning doesn't happen until book 3!

Foreshadowing doesn't really exist in this book, at least in a way that makes sense. The authors decided to hold the reader's hand from beginning to end, and there is hardly any, if any at all, 'showing' instead of 'telling'.

Now for the main complaint. I didn't see anywhere (on descriptions, reviews, tiktoks, nothing) any kind of trigger warning or content warnings. THIS BOOK IS FULL OF NON-CONSENSUAL ACTS. I am not one to shame others for their preferences, so if you like this kind of stuff be my guest. We all have our own tastes. I definitely should not have read this book for personal reasons, my mental health definitely took a hit.

It was especially gross when a vampire teacher figure is feeding off of one of the main characters who is a student, and the vampires get to 'claim' their sources for energy, which is also very gross. There's also non-consensual touching (non-sexual) on like every other page.

I do have to hand it to the main characters for not being comfortable with any of this stuff and actually standing their ground. But how many times do they have to say they don't consent to something for the supposed love interests to stop what they're doing??? Almost every single time, the boys end up overpowering the girls to do what they want (feeding, taking energy/magic, etc), until the girls are strong enough to make them stop. So I waited this whole book for a badass boss bitch moment and it never happened.

And we all know that the boys are supposed to get their redemption arcs and whatever as is par for the trope, but I just can't see how they can be redeemed after literally trying to murder one of the twins??!?

I will not be continuing this series.

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