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celenesewingwildoats 's review for:
A Darkness So Sweet
by Emma Hamm
adventurous
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Damn, I’m not sure why the author hated Maia so much, but goddamn was that rough reading for the first 100 pages. I felt so bad for the FMC. I guess all of the degradation, abuse, total-and-complete-absolute-hatred and disgust was to show contrast between the first initial impressions and the forthcoming bonding, but holy hell was that hard to read. I understand that it was done in order to get her out of her society-imposed shell. We love an imperfect FMC, but this was down-right brutal. You’ll get whiplash with the MMC’s point of view. A true enemies-to-lovers, albeit one-sided in my opinion. It’s more like, one sees a much hated enemy and the other one is just dumb? Foolish? Naive? Caught off guard? To be fair, the FMC had no idea what the heck was even happening to her, so she’s rather passive at first. Interesting world building though! Phenomenal job with the overall writing and atmosphere. I would say it’s about 2.5 spicy peppers out of 5. Could have been spicier in my opinion, but I’m a devious deviant, so this might be the perfect amount of spice for normal people. It’s a slow burn for sure, and considering how they get together in the first place, that’s totally reasonable.
Also, I’m not the biggest fan of the miscommunication trope in general, but I don’t think it would have made a difference in this one if the FMC had spoken up sooner.
Don’t be fooled by the cover, this is a brutal world, the brutality mostly coming from the human world… the trolls are pretty chill. It gets quite dark towards the end, very frustrating. Rather rushed and with no justice served to the villains. I think it sets up the next book at the end, but it’s kind of a HEA for the main characters?
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Sexual content, Violence
Minor: Body horror, Gore, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
This story is mostly an adventure, fish-out-of-water, enemies to lovers, monster romance with some spicy scenes. It’s not too violent, but the trolls are at war with the evil humans, so it does get rather intense. The FMC briefly gets into a dangerous situation, but is saved before anything too gruesome happens. Towards the end, there are darker themes that deal with sadistic human royals. Don’t want to spoil it, it’s honestly just a couple of chapters, but please check trigger warnings if you can find them online.