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ajwilson87 's review for:
Eat You Alive
by Eden O'Neill
I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a formula for horrible writing which includes 1) exposition dumping 2) inner monologues 3) badly written characters. At the basest of levels, this could have been a good story, but it is so far from that it’s laughable. I know so little about these characters by the end that this book is basically pointless. It is following the formula of a romance novel, but doing it so poorly that it is impossible to suspend disbelief long enough to think of these characters as real people. I could have loved this. I love plus-size romances, and this book even has a bisexual character that could have had so much character development, but instead he’s a one dimensional fuck boy like every other faceless friend of Ares. Even the initial reason why Ares wants to interact with Fawn doesn’t make sense. Not to mention the way his friends react towards her, which is violent, rapey, and so fucking cringe. I wanted so badly to like Ares, but he just kept being the most generic gym bro athlete on the planet. The execution of portraying “alphaholes” misses the mark so hard, it’s on another goddamn planet. They are not adult men who actually like women. These are adolescent boys who think exerting dominance over someone is “breaking them.” This may be a personal preference, but when I encounter a dominant character in a book I expect them to have more than just one personality trait. I also expect them to be decent human beings, and not dudes who have unfounded raging jealousy, have no understanding of bodily autonomy, and are cool with never addressing the trauma they inflict. Also, the “like stated before” made me lose my fucking mind. When has that ever been a thing outside of an actual live conversation with another human being, let alone a craft device in a book that other people are supposed to read? Why are you telling the audience that you’ve already stated something like they don’t fucking know? And it happens like 3 goddamn times. These characters never have a single real conversation. When something happens between them that is non-consensual, they never discuss it. It clearly bothered Fawn, but she gets past that humiliating trauma because he has a monster cock and is strong enough to pick her up. The list of infractions goes on and on. Don’t waste your time, or do— if you want to be mind fucked with a mental dildo that smells like a rape van parked outside of a sporting event.