A review by sarahesterman
That Sik Luv by Jescie Hall

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

2.0

 
Ok, I’m going to start this review off with a few notes: 
  • I didn’t come into it ready to compare it with Haunting Adeline (which I didn’t like), so my opinion has nothing to do with the Aero/Zade comparisons that others reacted to 
  • This is my first Jescie Hall book, and I will say that because of the rating and the fanfare I *did* expect better. But I am willing to try reading something else by her to see if it’s just this book or if she’s just not the author for me
  • I do read and enjoy dark romance, so it’s not like I didn’t like it because of the genre

 
Now that I’ve got that out of the way… this book wasn’t for me. And I’ve thought a lot about why that is over the last couple of days and I’ve landed on two main issues: You can tell that it was first written serially and didn’t have a robust edit when Hall published it as a book and there was too much purple prose.
 
There will be a few minor spoilers below, so read with caution.

 
You can tell it was written serially
I did read in another review that That Sik Luv was initially published on Wattpad. Normally, that’s good with me. I fuckin’ loved Wattpad. I paid to get rid of ads! I ate that shit up. But there is a quality difference expectation when it comes to reading a Wattpad story and reading a published book. I don’t care if the plot goes off the rails—the more unhinged the better, sometimes!—but I do care if there are significant plot inconsistencies or details that felt thrown in later when they should have been added earlier. 
 
One inconsistency: Aero talks about how when he was young and being abused in the name of the church that he just wanted to be treated how Saint was being treated: 
 
“I’m not just a non-believer for no reason. I believed once. I feared my predetermined damnation and let it drive the abuse. I had hope that my God would save me from all of my despair as promised. That there was a legitimate answer as to why my life wasn’t like Saint’s.”
 
… but if Aero is 29 and we have to assume Saint is 20 (because that’s the age Briony started the book as and she says they are classmates), wouldn’t Saint have just been a tiny baby or maybe not even born yet? It just… doesn’t make sense. Unless Aero was a teenager when the abuse happened, but I feel like it was implied he was much younger? Like no matter the age, the abuse is disgusting, and also the potential inconsistency with Saint’s age took me out of the story.
 
And then I have to talk about Briony’s age change. There was absolutely no reason she had to go from 20 to 18. It did nothing for the plot except make Aero seem creepy for being ALMOST 30 and stalking a teenage girl and desperately waiting to bone her until she turned 18.

But I digress.

The purple prose
 
Purple prose isn’t always “bad writing,” but when it’s repetitive to such a large degree and it feels like the author was more worried about the book sounding pretty and emo than they were about the plot or the movement of the characters... that’s when it stems into bad writing territory for me. We were told sooo many times that their love was toxic. And there were so many lyrical, flowery paragraphs that meant nothing at all. 
 
And all of this caused the book to stall tremendously in the middle and make it… boring. Like I was into the book in the first 30-40%, but then after that it just got dull and repetitive and I found myself skimming paragraphs of angsty purple prose just to get to plot movement. 
 
Aside from that, I did have some issues, like with Briony being so ready to do all the sex things after ONE WEEK when she was raised in the highest form of purity culture. Or her becoming a skilled assassin in the same time. I can suspend my disbelief when I read, but apparently not that far.
 
I will say the smut was good though.