A review by lilcurious
Bride by Ali Hazelwood

1.0

I was enjoying their dynamic in the beginning, Misery has a lot of cute interactions with the Lowe's little sister and it was nice overall, but so many things started to bother me. So here is a list in the order I started to get annoyed:

• Some minor inconsistencies, like when she wonders if the crotch is also sensitive to Weres, ignoring the fact that very little time ago she kneed one in the crotch for self-defense and it worked. This ignoring of information that was already given to us happens a couple of times and I just think it's annoying that a reader gets punished for paying attention. 
• I don't really like Serena or how their friendship was talked about. A lot of intense emotions are expressed in a very romantic-love-like way and not exactly codependent-friendship way. But with time Misery starts to remember some really toxic things Serena did, to the point I wondered if Ali Hazelwood was portraying the MC slowly realizing Serena was the bad guy.
• What the fuck is this worldbuilding? It doesn't matter how many times Misery says the difference in species is "just biology," if the author doesn't explain how the fuck Weres shift, she can pretend she thought this through all she wants and it'll still make no sense. Or even the notion of mate, which is pretty important for the book! And why do Humans have the same preconceptions of Weres and Vampyres that we have in the real world? It could be silly and meta, but it's just there??? with no rhyme or reason.
• Hazelwood's knack for super smart MCs that somehow are also very much dumb is still going strong. She can't create suspense in an appealing way, so she just makes up an MC who is incapable of realizing stuff happening. It makes for very unbelievable characters. 
• I DO NOT understand the third act break up in this one. The plot had a very strong climax, so I don't know why the author thought it was necessary for them to break up to create tension. But I also don't understand how the characters emotionally got in that place, it doesn't make sense from any perspective.
  Like, I understand Lowe was worried about the whole mate thing, but it doesn't come close to justifying a breakup, much less the things he said to her, he could just yk present his worries like the compassionate and reasonable Alpha he is. but no ig. It was so absurd I thought he had a plan for sending her away, but no.
• A pet peeve of mine, but I hate reconciliation sex. I just saw them fighting, I don't wanna see them fucking now, let them just hug each other idk.
• Mate-obsessed Lowe is very boring.
• The epilogue is there for the sole reason of introducing a couple for the companion novel. Annoying.