A review by ladylaurenexplorer
Oleander: A Great Expectations Retelling by Scarlett Drake

emotional inspiring sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

* I definitely don’t want to ruin anything for anyone especially this early, but if you want to read a great romance. That in stages leads more and more desperate for some kind of happy ending. Yet you have to go through this grueling emotional angst filled journey. Come the end of it, you realize that they chose you and has been choosing you since they subconsciously realize that they loved you.*

I was really happy to receive this ARC. I had been in almost a month long reading slump. This is so angst filled. You get invested in the character’s fill in the emotions that sometimes you’ll just end up tearing up or crying without realizing that it’s happening.

Jude has made me feel so much through my reading journey with him that when he was feeling the heartbreak was feeling it and crying. 

I never expected the I don’t even know what to call it. If you should call it the twist in the end, but I didn’t expect how everything played out. The ‘Why would you?’..and ‘How could you?’…just kept coming up. 

You definitely need to check the trigger warnings because as a story progresses, you start seeing things that suggest certain situations, but doesn’t outright say things until it does. I haven’t felt this way since reading, Darling Venom, for various other reasons that aren’t the TW of the book. But the very visceral emotion that I had as the FMC character developed. 

My first paragraph might seem a bit dramatic, but I think that’s what this book has still in me because I want you to understand that this is going to hurt, but by the end of it, I hope, you’ll love it just as much as I did. So please read it!!!