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A review by misha_diana
Den of Vipers by K.A. Knight
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
Note from the end: this ended up being less so a review and more so a messy analysis, there’s a lot of spoilers in this, and I talk about the sex scenes a fair amount, just an fyi ... also I’m not sure on Goodreads profanity filters, so I’m gonna * all the bad words just in case, if bad words are allowed here then I’ll know for next time
I saw this book in a TikTok video, the girl in the video essentially said she needed therapy after finishing it, it was all kinds of f*cked up. So naturally I wanted to read it. I read a few reviews that said it was ‘like a wattpad story but worse’ and I rubbed my hands together with glee because who doesn’t want a hate read every once in a while.
I want to preface this by saying I weirdly enjoyed it. Because I wasn’t expecting it to be good, because I accepted very early on that this was not the height of literature, I had a fun time reading it, for the most part.
That being said, I’ve got some things to say.
The story and the characters could have been so good, it was just the writing that wasn’t. I’m not too fussed about how serious the story is when it comes to erotica, so long as something interesting is happening between the sex scenes, you don’t need a big intricate story. I’m not reading erotica just for the plot, let’s be real now. Mildly incestuous mob family who own the city and rule ruthlessly, take a girl to clear a debt, there’s a mob war, the girl falls in love with all of the men, they win the war, they live happily ever after in this 5 way romance? That’s fine!
But at all stages it’s just bad. The debt makes 0 sense because (assuming parents have any legal ‘right’ over their children, which they don’t really), your 24 year old daughter who has completely cut you off, who owns her own business, lives entirely independently of you, is not a bargaining chip? No mobster is going to take that deal? It’s not a matter or principle? The options are steal all this mans money, kill him, or pointlessly kidnap his estranged daughter; which is going to make you look bigger and scarier?
The falling in love happens at 100mph, and the characters both recognise and completely negate it at the same time. The bulk of the story, as far as I can tell happens over about 2 weeks, maybe 3 at a push. By day 4 Roxy (our main character) has already had sex with 2 of them (the consent of that is iffy, because she wants to have sex with them, but is angry that they’ve kidnapped her and actively fights against them during the first few sex scenes) By about the week mark, Kenzo (one of our mob-bosses) is talking about how he fell in love with Roxy slowly, she keeps getting under his skin, it’s not slow if it’s only been a week!!
I would say just the sex scenes, but honestly the whole dominating dynamic is... misguided. There are no clear boundaries, almost all the scenes toe the line of consent pretty badly, ‘punishments’ are handed out at inappropriate times (when they tell her she can leave and then get angry when she leaves), people are killed/fired for so much as looking as Roxy, there are times characters are straight up having psychotic episodes during a sex scene which shouldn’t be happening🙄. I’m not asking for a board meeting to discuss Dom/sub contracts, the whole mobster, raw and gritty things means they’re gonna skip that sh*t, and that’s ... fine, but when there’s no boundaries/rules/baseline it’s really boarders on plain abuse, regardless of how much Roxy enjoys it.
Saying that, /some/ of the sex scenes could’ve gone further, only some of them. There were times it felt like the boys were all bark and no bite. For instance, near the end Diesel has Roxy tied to the table and he’s talking about ‘torturing’ her in new ways, and how much he’s going to enjoy it, and she’s just gotta lie back and take it, then he dribbled candle wax on her, picks it off, (there’s a weird bit where he has a moment and almost stabs her, re psychotic episodes mid-fuck 🙄), and then he bangs her, and that’s it. He threatens to leave her tied up for the others to find, and then just unties her... and it’s just like, why not do that... why threaten it if you’re not going to follow through... it could’ve been a good scene?? And instances like that happen throughout, in some places they go so far that it’s bizarre, in others your left with literary blue balls 🙄
The anatomical accuracy during the sex scenes was more often than not terrible. My 2 favourites were (I think) Ryder watching the 👉🏻👌🏻 happen, whilst banging in reverse cowgirl on a chair, so Roxy was facing away from him, sat on his lap.. and Diesel somehow managing to bite Roxy’s butt cheek at the same time as doing her from behind, and holding that bite whilst in motion, is he a contortionist???? Roxy is beaten to a pulp in some of the scenes, the boys definitely get a few broken noses, and there’s never any reference to bruises, cuts, scabs, sprains after the scene has finished... And as someone who has partially dislocated her shoulder, I can tell you now that there’s no way Roxy is popping her fully dislocated shoulder back into place after being tortured for information, and then proceeding to beat 2 separate people to a pulp with a baseball bat without seeking medical attention. I don’t care that she’s got a pain f*tish, or that’s she’s been so abused in her childhood that she can just carry on, and that doesn’t even cover the rest of the injuries she sustains in that scene... he pulled out her toes nails I swear????
Also safe sex is almost never mentioned, there is 1 mention of a condom as far as I remember, and after that all sex is completely unprotected, no other contraception is mentioned, nor is Roxy ever on her period at any time (its a weird book enough that period sex wouldn’t be that weird here, but nope)
Okay, let’s look at the main characters quick, because I’m remembering why I don’t write reviews, I’m not very good at writing structured reviews haha
Roxy - Alternative Mary-Sue. She’s not like other girls in every sense of the word. She’s a ‘rock chick’, bad mouthed, brash, violent, damaged, too cool for school gal. She’s very one-note, all of her nice caring moments are cliche after cliche. But I give her huge props for dealing with the boys, she’s a f*ckin machine.
Ryder - Strong Christian Grey vibes. Admittedly I’ve got a soft spot for him though, I love a good super damaged but cares fiercely about his family, massive control complex dude. He is my favourite brother because he’s the most believable, an icy control, calculatedly brutal, his Dom dynamic is the most consistent, secretly very sweet. Honestly, I’d read a book just about him.
Kenzo - He’s supposed to be the nice one, and in contrast to the rest of the brothers that makes him the most boring. There are moments where he’s suddenly very unhinged, and it just feels forced. It’s a shame because he could’ve been a really likeable character.
Diesel - I got a lot to say about Diesel, I got a lotta feelings about this guy. First, he is an absolute caricature of every psycho trope. Pain f*tish, blood f*tish, knife f*tish, violence f*tish, pyromaniac, obsessive, erratic, compulsive. There’s that knife-an*l scene that I just wanna erase from my brain entirely, he f*cks her with a gun at one point, touches himself while his brothers are torturing enemies?? Then there’s the way his craziness is written, licking flames and giggling to intimidate people? No pal, you’re not scaring anyone... this is what I mean when I say it could’ve been a good story if it was written better.. just have him flick the lighter menacingly in the background, maybe running his finger through the flames when he’s zoning out.. it’s doesn’t always have to be so out there to make the point that this guy likes fire and it’s crazy, y’know... and his pain threshold is... something else... like pain f*tishes are fine, they’re fairly common, but there’s the aforementioned knife-an*l scene, there’s a scene where he accidentally licks a shard of glass and it cuts his tongue and he get off on it??? Like there’s pain, and then there’s just sheer inconvenience ???
Garrett - I also lowkey love him too, but he’s still an exaggeration... he was brutally betrayed by his ex girlfriend and now he can’t even stand the sight of women, and has to basically kill people in illegal street fights to keep his anger at bay?? But his trauma, if written better would be understandable and he had so much potential!! His Dom dynamic was also pretty consistent, once he had his big cathartic origin story reveal.. so we love Garrett 👏🏻
I’ve never cringed/retched/laughed out loud so much at a book, it was good fun because I knew it was gonna be bad. The reviews that said it was like a bad wattpad story were completely correct.
If the author took the time to go back and do their research, thresh out the characters, and refine their writing style more, it could be a really good book, but it just came off feeling like it was written by a teenager whose entire knowledge of BDSM-style relationships came from reading other teenagers’ erotica stories😬
I saw this book in a TikTok video, the girl in the video essentially said she needed therapy after finishing it, it was all kinds of f*cked up. So naturally I wanted to read it. I read a few reviews that said it was ‘like a wattpad story but worse’ and I rubbed my hands together with glee because who doesn’t want a hate read every once in a while.
I want to preface this by saying I weirdly enjoyed it. Because I wasn’t expecting it to be good, because I accepted very early on that this was not the height of literature, I had a fun time reading it, for the most part.
That being said, I’ve got some things to say.
The story and the characters could have been so good, it was just the writing that wasn’t. I’m not too fussed about how serious the story is when it comes to erotica, so long as something interesting is happening between the sex scenes, you don’t need a big intricate story. I’m not reading erotica just for the plot, let’s be real now. Mildly incestuous mob family who own the city and rule ruthlessly, take a girl to clear a debt, there’s a mob war, the girl falls in love with all of the men, they win the war, they live happily ever after in this 5 way romance? That’s fine!
But at all stages it’s just bad. The debt makes 0 sense because (assuming parents have any legal ‘right’ over their children, which they don’t really), your 24 year old daughter who has completely cut you off, who owns her own business, lives entirely independently of you, is not a bargaining chip? No mobster is going to take that deal? It’s not a matter or principle? The options are steal all this mans money, kill him, or pointlessly kidnap his estranged daughter; which is going to make you look bigger and scarier?
The falling in love happens at 100mph, and the characters both recognise and completely negate it at the same time. The bulk of the story, as far as I can tell happens over about 2 weeks, maybe 3 at a push. By day 4 Roxy (our main character) has already had sex with 2 of them (the consent of that is iffy, because she wants to have sex with them, but is angry that they’ve kidnapped her and actively fights against them during the first few sex scenes) By about the week mark, Kenzo (one of our mob-bosses) is talking about how he fell in love with Roxy slowly, she keeps getting under his skin, it’s not slow if it’s only been a week!!
I would say just the sex scenes, but honestly the whole dominating dynamic is... misguided. There are no clear boundaries, almost all the scenes toe the line of consent pretty badly, ‘punishments’ are handed out at inappropriate times (when they tell her she can leave and then get angry when she leaves), people are killed/fired for so much as looking as Roxy, there are times characters are straight up having psychotic episodes during a sex scene which shouldn’t be happening🙄. I’m not asking for a board meeting to discuss Dom/sub contracts, the whole mobster, raw and gritty things means they’re gonna skip that sh*t, and that’s ... fine, but when there’s no boundaries/rules/baseline it’s really boarders on plain abuse, regardless of how much Roxy enjoys it.
Saying that, /some/ of the sex scenes could’ve gone further, only some of them. There were times it felt like the boys were all bark and no bite. For instance, near the end Diesel has Roxy tied to the table and he’s talking about ‘torturing’ her in new ways, and how much he’s going to enjoy it, and she’s just gotta lie back and take it, then he dribbled candle wax on her, picks it off, (there’s a weird bit where he has a moment and almost stabs her, re psychotic episodes mid-fuck 🙄), and then he bangs her, and that’s it. He threatens to leave her tied up for the others to find, and then just unties her... and it’s just like, why not do that... why threaten it if you’re not going to follow through... it could’ve been a good scene?? And instances like that happen throughout, in some places they go so far that it’s bizarre, in others your left with literary blue balls 🙄
The anatomical accuracy during the sex scenes was more often than not terrible. My 2 favourites were (I think) Ryder watching the 👉🏻👌🏻 happen, whilst banging in reverse cowgirl on a chair, so Roxy was facing away from him, sat on his lap.. and Diesel somehow managing to bite Roxy’s butt cheek at the same time as doing her from behind, and holding that bite whilst in motion, is he a contortionist???? Roxy is beaten to a pulp in some of the scenes, the boys definitely get a few broken noses, and there’s never any reference to bruises, cuts, scabs, sprains after the scene has finished... And as someone who has partially dislocated her shoulder, I can tell you now that there’s no way Roxy is popping her fully dislocated shoulder back into place after being tortured for information, and then proceeding to beat 2 separate people to a pulp with a baseball bat without seeking medical attention. I don’t care that she’s got a pain f*tish, or that’s she’s been so abused in her childhood that she can just carry on, and that doesn’t even cover the rest of the injuries she sustains in that scene... he pulled out her toes nails I swear????
Also safe sex is almost never mentioned, there is 1 mention of a condom as far as I remember, and after that all sex is completely unprotected, no other contraception is mentioned, nor is Roxy ever on her period at any time (its a weird book enough that period sex wouldn’t be that weird here, but nope)
Okay, let’s look at the main characters quick, because I’m remembering why I don’t write reviews, I’m not very good at writing structured reviews haha
Roxy - Alternative Mary-Sue. She’s not like other girls in every sense of the word. She’s a ‘rock chick’, bad mouthed, brash, violent, damaged, too cool for school gal. She’s very one-note, all of her nice caring moments are cliche after cliche. But I give her huge props for dealing with the boys, she’s a f*ckin machine.
Ryder - Strong Christian Grey vibes. Admittedly I’ve got a soft spot for him though, I love a good super damaged but cares fiercely about his family, massive control complex dude. He is my favourite brother because he’s the most believable, an icy control, calculatedly brutal, his Dom dynamic is the most consistent, secretly very sweet. Honestly, I’d read a book just about him.
Kenzo - He’s supposed to be the nice one, and in contrast to the rest of the brothers that makes him the most boring. There are moments where he’s suddenly very unhinged, and it just feels forced. It’s a shame because he could’ve been a really likeable character.
Diesel - I got a lot to say about Diesel, I got a lotta feelings about this guy. First, he is an absolute caricature of every psycho trope. Pain f*tish, blood f*tish, knife f*tish, violence f*tish, pyromaniac, obsessive, erratic, compulsive. There’s that knife-an*l scene that I just wanna erase from my brain entirely, he f*cks her with a gun at one point, touches himself while his brothers are torturing enemies?? Then there’s the way his craziness is written, licking flames and giggling to intimidate people? No pal, you’re not scaring anyone... this is what I mean when I say it could’ve been a good story if it was written better.. just have him flick the lighter menacingly in the background, maybe running his finger through the flames when he’s zoning out.. it’s doesn’t always have to be so out there to make the point that this guy likes fire and it’s crazy, y’know... and his pain threshold is... something else... like pain f*tishes are fine, they’re fairly common, but there’s the aforementioned knife-an*l scene, there’s a scene where he accidentally licks a shard of glass and it cuts his tongue and he get off on it??? Like there’s pain, and then there’s just sheer inconvenience ???
Garrett - I also lowkey love him too, but he’s still an exaggeration... he was brutally betrayed by his ex girlfriend and now he can’t even stand the sight of women, and has to basically kill people in illegal street fights to keep his anger at bay?? But his trauma, if written better would be understandable and he had so much potential!! His Dom dynamic was also pretty consistent, once he had his big cathartic origin story reveal.. so we love Garrett 👏🏻
I’ve never cringed/retched/laughed out loud so much at a book, it was good fun because I knew it was gonna be bad. The reviews that said it was like a bad wattpad story were completely correct.
If the author took the time to go back and do their research, thresh out the characters, and refine their writing style more, it could be a really good book, but it just came off feeling like it was written by a teenager whose entire knowledge of BDSM-style relationships came from reading other teenagers’ erotica stories😬
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, and Blood
Moderate: Body horror, Death, Gun violence, and Sexual assault
Minor: Kidnapping