Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - The Ritual - A szertartás

This year is my year to read more romance, and this is my first read in dark college romance. Thanks BookTok!

This felt like reading an AITA where ETA because money, entitlement, and secret societies.

While I actually enjoyed the supposed actual storyline, the characters smashing every other page just got too much. I mean, how many ways can they do the same thing and still be so surprised she likes it?!

Morally grey, dark, and quite spicy.

Content Warnings

smilestarshine's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-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

2.0

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wandering_seal's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

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

4.0

Look it was fine. There are some really fucking questionable decisions going on storywise - the

kiddos names at the end

for one, and the weird need to write out the name and artist of every song they hear playing.

This is one of those books where I'm somehow meant to believe the MMC has only had sex as a teenager and has been abstinent for the past three years before getting a pet sex slave and is somehow amazing at everything he wants to do with a solid working knowledge of all the kinks and how to navigate our FMCs body. Oh and he's a super awesome killer. With a future in law. Yep. Yeah. The suspension of disbelief was hard in this one.

I think you know what your getting into with these books. The lack of kinkshaming was really nice, and the emphasis on consent was also good considering this is a story with lots of dubcon aspects. I listened to it on audiobook at twice speed so the length of the plot didn't really bother me, but it is a loooong story and the later part in particular could have been tightened up.

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lzzlong16's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

5🌶️ def check trigger warnings on this one. It gets wild 🤪

Going into the ritual I really didn't know what to expect but I was sucked in immediately. I started it before bed one night and before I knew it I was 150pgs in with no end in sight. I love a secret society story. Learning about the wild world of the Lords. This had some wild spice but I loved the story behind it even more. That's one thing I love so much is when you get crazy smut but also a gripping story. I wanted to see what happened on Ryats assignements, I loved seeing Blakely come into herself. It was a very interesting read and I can't wait to we what's in the next book!

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chesneisanchez's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No

2.25

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booksandgore's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

4.0

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cheeserue's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

2.5

"I’d go to war for my wife. One man was nothing."

and go to war they did; just, not the kind he expected.

wtf was this book? why did they build up a good plot only for it to suck so bad in the end? WHY DID SHE KEEP TAKE THE DRUGS WILLINGLY?! why did they take (approximately) 1000 showers?

force sex fantasy and CNC but not one conversation about limits or safe words, GHB fed to her every 5 seconds, fucking next to dead bodies, secret society plotline barely touched, FMC having just about no personality, obsessed ex bf who didn't want her when they were together but now wants her because his enemy has her, random elopement so she doesnt have to be forced into marriage to said ex bf. it just keeps going.

I love dark romances, especially CNC/FSF but this wasn't it. this book didn't need to be 600 pages.

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