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A review by lezreadalot
Vibe by Liza James
2.0
1.5 stars. Have to be honest, this had potential but it was ultimately... not great! At all! I don't often read dark romance but I have to be clear that that's not why this didn't work for me; I knew what I was getting into and the type of stuff I could expect. This just wasn't very well-written or well-executed and as a romance, it did very little for me.
Aura is a survivor, having run away from the cult that brainwashed her since she was a little girl. Ruby is a dancer at a strip club, beholden to a powerful man. They meet one night when Aura's boyfriend and best friend take her for a fun night at the strip club and the two women have a (supposedly) undeniably spark and attraction. The insta-connection is where things started going a little awry for me. Authors use it a lot at the start of their books, and sometimes it works and it's really convincing, but I really didn't feel it here. Nothing about their romance ever really got me; there was nothing to show why they fell for each other. Sometimes, they would talk to/about each other in a way that made me flinch, like... was any of that supposed to be romantic?
The darkness of the story also didn't really work, imo. There's dark, and then there's ridiculous. A lot of horrible things happen to these women, both on and off-page, and after a while the book just started to feel over-saturated with suffering. In all but a few notable instances, there's nothing they can do about what they're going through. It began to feel like misery/trauma porn, especially in a few key instances where ANY reasonable person would have taken certain steps to get themselves out of the situation, but they didn't? Spoilers ahead: The author wrote them putting themselves back into dangerous and compromising situations, because apparently she wasn't done making them suffer. It starts to bleed the sadness/seriousness out of those situations, and just makes them... exhausting. Gratuitous. Needless.
The writing did not compel me, to say the least. I'd have preferred bare simplicity, rather than the pseudo-flowery language we got, with randomly cobbled together images and metaphors that didn't make much sense. This also introduced me to a new pet peeve: too much fucking profanity in the fucking prose. I 1000% don't care if characters have filthy mouths, but an over-abundance of f-bombs in prose is just kinda silly to me. The plot is... okay, and there are a few interesting reveals, but all in all the story moves in a way that makes the beginning a little nonsensical. The romance has undercurrents of obsession/possessiveness which is usually my JAM, but ultimately I felt very little for it. I like unique pet names, but Vibe Girl... what is that?
I think I'll stop here before this review just devolves into me listing nit-picks. Cult survivor stories and abuse survivor stories can be really powerful, but this just missed the mark for me by a mile. I'm trying to think of complimentary things to say about this, and all I can think of is that most of the sex scenes were hot. Give it a go if you're interested and if you like dark stuff (I'd recommend taking a look at the content warnings). This just wasn't for me.
Content warnings:.
Aura is a survivor, having run away from the cult that brainwashed her since she was a little girl. Ruby is a dancer at a strip club, beholden to a powerful man. They meet one night when Aura's boyfriend and best friend take her for a fun night at the strip club and the two women have a (supposedly) undeniably spark and attraction. The insta-connection is where things started going a little awry for me. Authors use it a lot at the start of their books, and sometimes it works and it's really convincing, but I really didn't feel it here. Nothing about their romance ever really got me; there was nothing to show why they fell for each other. Sometimes, they would talk to/about each other in a way that made me flinch, like... was any of that supposed to be romantic?
The darkness of the story also didn't really work, imo. There's dark, and then there's ridiculous. A lot of horrible things happen to these women, both on and off-page, and after a while the book just started to feel over-saturated with suffering. In all but a few notable instances, there's nothing they can do about what they're going through. It began to feel like misery/trauma porn, especially in a few key instances where ANY reasonable person would have taken certain steps to get themselves out of the situation, but they didn't? Spoilers ahead:
Spoiler
Not leaving town after they stab Dom?? Aura going back to Hawk's apartment BY HERSELF?? Stopping to have sex after killing Hawk instead of fleeing the scene/getting rid of the body?? Make it make sense!!The writing did not compel me, to say the least. I'd have preferred bare simplicity, rather than the pseudo-flowery language we got, with randomly cobbled together images and metaphors that didn't make much sense. This also introduced me to a new pet peeve: too much fucking profanity in the fucking prose. I 1000% don't care if characters have filthy mouths, but an over-abundance of f-bombs in prose is just kinda silly to me. The plot is... okay, and there are a few interesting reveals, but all in all the story moves in a way that makes the beginning a little nonsensical. The romance has undercurrents of obsession/possessiveness which is usually my JAM, but ultimately I felt very little for it. I like unique pet names, but Vibe Girl... what is that?
I think I'll stop here before this review just devolves into me listing nit-picks. Cult survivor stories and abuse survivor stories can be really powerful, but this just missed the mark for me by a mile. I'm trying to think of complimentary things to say about this, and all I can think of is that most of the sex scenes were hot. Give it a go if you're interested and if you like dark stuff (I'd recommend taking a look at the content warnings). This just wasn't for me.
Content warnings: