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A review by iam
How to Belong with a Billionaire by Alexis Hall
3.0
The very different than expected and a little weird finale to this mostly enjoyable series.
Content warnings include: drug use, sex on-page, BDSM (bondage, impact play, D/s), graphic attempted rape, cheating; mentions of abusive relationship, sexual abuse of a minor, death of a parent.
What most surprised me about this was how very little Caspian appeared in this book. For most of the book, Arden simply continues on with his life after the breakup. Which was fine - I mostly enjoyed what was going on with him, his relationship with his friends and parents and his job. But that made the inevitable ending of the book - Caspian and Arden getting back together - seem sort of abrupt and even... I hestitate to call it unfitting? I can just say that I enjoyed myself more reading about the parts where Arden was single than the parts where he got back together with Caspian.
The ending was also very underwhelming. It was short and didn't really resolve anything, it didn't really feel like the main conflict was properly talked out and huge parts of it were simply ignored??? Most of this could easily have been made better by extending the ending and giving it a proper epilogue but... nope.
I adored the side characters (George, Ilya, Poppy and Finesilver <3) and I wished they had gotten more page time as well. Others, like Nathaniel, felt sort of weird to me, but that might be because I had wholly different expectations for his character than what he turned out to be, and that's on me.
Overall I just feel extremely puzzled by pretty much all decisions about how this book was handled, the choices that were made in regards to writing and what to focus on, what to expand and what roles to give different characters. Which isn't a really pleasant feeling, even if I would say my experience with the series was largely positive.
Content warnings include: drug use, sex on-page, BDSM (bondage, impact play, D/s), graphic attempted rape, cheating; mentions of abusive relationship, sexual abuse of a minor, death of a parent.
What most surprised me about this was how very little Caspian appeared in this book. For most of the book, Arden simply continues on with his life after the breakup. Which was fine - I mostly enjoyed what was going on with him, his relationship with his friends and parents and his job. But that made the inevitable ending of the book - Caspian and Arden getting back together - seem sort of abrupt and even... I hestitate to call it unfitting? I can just say that I enjoyed myself more reading about the parts where Arden was single than the parts where he got back together with Caspian.
The ending was also very underwhelming. It was short and didn't really resolve anything, it didn't really feel like the main conflict was properly talked out and huge parts of it were simply ignored??? Most of this could easily have been made better by extending the ending and giving it a proper epilogue but... nope.
I adored the side characters (George, Ilya, Poppy and Finesilver <3) and I wished they had gotten more page time as well. Others, like Nathaniel, felt sort of weird to me, but that might be because I had wholly different expectations for his character than what he turned out to be, and that's on me.
Overall I just feel extremely puzzled by pretty much all decisions about how this book was handled, the choices that were made in regards to writing and what to focus on, what to expand and what roles to give different characters. Which isn't a really pleasant feeling, even if I would say my experience with the series was largely positive.