Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Den of Vipers

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Den of Vipers by K.A. Knight

41 reviews

starryaqua's review against another edition

HARD DNF at page 49

CW: domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, rape, coercion, violence and uhh…. gross misogyny, etc, etc

I took a risk with this one. I thought this was gonna be a chill, turn-your-brain-off kind of romance. I can do dark romance without an issue. But this? Is truly something else.

The writing is extremely immature and barely edited. Way too shallow to handle content of this nature, even if it’s supposed to be mindless. I was catching blatant errors (like forgetting the character’s pov mid-chapter and having them accidentally say their own name in dialogue). Physical descriptions were giving teenage Wattpad fanfiction. Like filling a paragraph with the main character talking about her getting dressed. Ebony D’arkness Dementia Raven Way type of prose.

Speaking of, the fmc was THE most “not like other girls”, edgy and damaged and “tough” fmc I’ve ever read. The ~silver~ hair and piercings and tattoos and clunky boots. Not her calling herself a “rocker chick” as she put on a concert shirt for The Killers. I wish I was making this up. Just her and her bat and her overpowered skill to knock out four huge men against the world. She was bland, tired, and miserable to follow. I simply did not care about her and definitely didn’t care for the fact that we were told EVERYTHING about her. Like she was directly blabbing to the reader.

The other main characters (love interests? I guess) are equally insufferable and horrendously trope-y. All comically huge and tough and spewing the most constant stream of misogynistic vitriol it was actually gross to read. Their inner monologue was either annoying and boring or downright disturbing. All of them were insanely sexually charged at all times, some getting off on gratuitous displays of gore and violence. If any of them were supposed to be redeemable in the eyes of the reader or if their actions were justified, I didn’t care to keep reading. Nor could there ever be an excuse to their calling dibs on their new “property”, discussing raping her, and immediately sexually assaulting her, or threatening her with needless violence.

The plot was as thin as a tissue. Mafia made a deal with fmc’s dad, he falls through, they collect the debt by kidnapping his daughter to “own” her. Why? No reason. 2013 fanfiction was calling I guess. I didn’t read more to find out what happens, but I don’t need to to know that whatever sex occurs won’t be consensual. Dubious at best. Coercion isn’t consent. Threats aren’t consent. There’s nothing safe and sane about holding someone captive and immediately pushing your <i>actually</i> psychopathic murderous sadism on someone. That’s not how this works. It’s a shaky line of fantasies and actual harm in its portrayal, leaning hard on the incredibly unethical practices.

For the level of strength, sheer walls of muscle mass, and penitent for violence, it truly made no sense that the men were even human? Everything about them (especially Diesel) read like they were some sort of inhuman force. His lust for blood and biting at people’s skin (he ripped an earlobe off with his teeth?) was so unnatural for just a regular human dude. An extremely fucked up human, but still. Human. If this was fanfiction of some kind I wouldn’t be surprised.

TDLR: yikes. If you want to write unethically violent rape-y fantasies, at least get an editor with better eyes.

Content Warnings

rory_drake's review against another edition

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2.0

Listen...this book started out really promising. Dark romance? Heck yeah. Smut? Give it to me! But at about 90%, all I could think is, "why is this book so GD long?" The unnecessary spicy scenes. The chapters of just info dumping. The cringey descriptions. I just can't do it anymore. You could take at least 3 of the unnecessar spicy scenes out, and I swear this book would be 200 pages shorter. And much easier to get through.

Content Warnings

bbygirl21's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I honestly went into this not sure if I would like it for to the amount of bad reviews and videos I saw on TikTok prior to reading this. But I actually really enjoyed this.

And I was just reading the reviews that are on here and was shocked by what people actually didn't like and complained about compared to what I thought people wouldn't like. A lot of them talked about minimal plot and the book being too long as their reasons for not enjoying the book. Which if your going into this looking for plot I guess to others they don't think there's much of it, and to some extent I agree with them, even though I found the plot along with everything else quite enjoyable. So if you want more plot over spice then this probably isn't for you. But I thought the plot was good.

But what shocked me about the reviews the most was that people weren't mentioning the graphic sexual scenes in their reasonings for not enjoying the book. I thought those would be taken about more. But I guess it really just comes down to plot and book length for most people.

But aside from that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I could not stop reading it. I just wanted to keep reading and see what would happen next. I was actually laughing a lot throughout this entire book. I found Diesel particularly hilarious. He's just that funny brand of crazy. I honestly don't know people hate on him so much(aside from the obvious torture and violence of his job and sex life) I found him very entertaining and enjoyable.

I love so the characters. Roxy is a badass and I love that she doesn't take anything from no one. The guys were just amazing. I loved each and every one of them. Diesel of course which I already talked about was just hilarious. I loved how crazy and obsessive he is. Kenzo was just a sweetheart most of the time. I loved how he just wanted to spoil Roxy especially knowing his and Ryder's past.

Ryder and Garrett both frustrated me a little bit, but their behavior is slightly understandable given their rough backgrounds. It doesn't excuse them but I understand them. What Garrett went through with his ex Daphne was brutal and heartbreaking. And I couldn't help but love Garrett despite his angry outbursts and violence towards Roxy. And it's the same with Ryder. The way he's always felt the need to protect Kenzo since they were kids from their father and then all of the guys and eventually Roxy. It was bound to get to him eventually. Despite the fact that they kidnapped her, I'm happy that she was able to help them overcome their fears and allow love in.

The chemistry in this group was just phenomenal. I love how they just gravitate to each other. And I loved the fact they ate breakfast together daily. It was just a sweet little thing that they made sure to do where everyone was together all at once.

I will say the end of the book after all the action doesn't really add much to the story plot wise. But I actually loved it. I haven't read a lot of books where there's a period after the climax of the story where we see the characters actually living life and being happy. Most books usually skip over all that detail. But I loved that there's actually several chapters of them recovering from everything and being happy or at least making progress towards being happy before there's the six month time jump at the end.

So overall, I absolutely loved this book. I definitely wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But if you really love dark gruesome stories with lots of spice this is for you. Definitely check the trigger warnings though.

Content Warnings

urlilmoth's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced

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

3.0

Well that was something

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murphybl's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

This is an extremely violent book. Reader be aware.

Content Warnings

geesusbeesus's review against another edition

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dark tense 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? Yes

2.0

Genuinely gave this book a shot because I saw so much hype about it on TikTok. I feel like it was overhyped a little, but there were also some really good parts worth reading. I really loved how they touched on a lot of sensitive subjects, and I'll give it credit for having some laughable moments. Some of the smut scenes were decent. I'll never judge anyone for how dark they like their books, I love dark romance, so that's not why I gave it such a low rating.

The cringe level just made it really difficult to read, I almost DNFd half way throught and part of me regrets reading the rest. It was giving 2015 Wattpad vibes and not in a good way. Roxanne is very "im not like the other girls, im a badass, just one of the guys lol" and the guys' personalities were overexaggerated. It felt like it was dragged out way too long and I found myself skimming the last 200 or so pages of the book. Definitely couldve been shorter. Not to mention the ultra-unrealistic feel to it. I get it, it's fiction, but majority of this book is simply not realistic or on par with "mafia/gang". Fair warning, there's a lot - and I mean a lot - of violence and smut in this. Every other scene is either torture/maiming/murder, or smut. It's a bit over the top.

Also, finding out how quickly this all progresses was a shocker. I was surprised at such a fast pace, I thought this took place over the span of maybe a few months.

Going into specifics-

The funeral for Sam was a good idea, but it also didn't make sense because they didn't really show her developing a friendship with him like that. I loved Roxy in the beginning, but she kinda turned into a power hungry and rude person towards the end, specifically noting when they were in the casino towards the end and she treats a security guard like crap... for what reason? This one is more of a personal pet peeve but the whole play on words with Vipers thing was kinda overplayed - using venom, coiled, like a snake, the snake pit, ect. - and the overuse of the petnames gets to me too - using "love" at the beginning and end of every sentance. And the sheer amount that they maimed/killed people.. theres a club scene where, in the span of probably about 15 minutes, Roxanne runs into a guy who calls her a whore and she beats him up, then a security guard mistakes her for a dancer and Garrett beats him half to death, and then the first guys brother confronts them and Diesel kills him. Its a little overkill, pun intended.

Content Warnings