chandlerainsley 's review for:

Ruckus by L.J. Shen

4.0

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I'm mostly just very disappointed in myself.

Because girl, I had a MASSIVE book hangover after reading the perfection that was Vicious. He was everything that a lovable douchebag should be.

But I said, "oh no, you can handle it, read that next book."



And as a result, I basically prevented myself from loving this book.

Here's what I didn't love:

I think it's extremely difficult to get characters that were involved in relationships in previous books to really impress. Both the hero AND the heroine of this book had VERY strong ties to the hero and heroine of the last book. No mystery at all there. And you kind of don't like Dean to start off this book because of his background from the last book.

Additionally, I wish that Dean's main internal (and I guess external too) conflict in the book had been laid out better. It wasn't a huge reveal, I guessed what it was, and I think Dean would have been more relatable if he just talked us through it. The glimpses of him that we do get are AWESOME, I loved the astronomy and hidden depths. I just wish that had been explored a little better, like it was in the previous book.

And just generally speaking I tend to prefer more tension in my romances; shit went back and forth for a while and then 0 to 100 REAL FREAKIN QUICK which I don't normally love.

All that being said I think that the main characters had really good chemistry. I loved Rose as a character; she was perfectly independent and thoughtful given her illness. And I just generally have fallen for this series. You want to root for and love on these guys.

It wasn't perfect but it was definitely worth a read.