A review by heyimberbie
Bride by Ali Hazelwood

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.75

I’ve heard people sing their praises about this book, and so it had me interested to find out why. 3 things about me: I love fantasy, I’ll read almost anything that my friends tell me is good, and I’ve never read an Ali Hazelwood book, so I thought this would be the perfect one to start with and I went in with no expectations.

I’ve seen many people say when reviewing this book that yes, it may not be the best and Ali Hazelwood may not be an exceptional writer, but they enjoyed it and then they say something about how ‘maybe you never outgrow the writing you’d get on Wattpad’ or ‘I guess that’s what happens when you grow up with Wattpad’.
Well, as someone who grew up with Wattpad and enjoyed reading fanfiction on there for a solid decade, I thoroughly hated this. I don’t understand how this can even get 5 star reviews.

Here’s what I disliked about it:
  • not a fantasy, just contemporary romance with Twilight characters; people are reaching so farwhen they call this a fantasy. At most, it could possibly deserve the paranormal tag because it has vampires and werewolves in it, but that’s it. There’s literally nothing else in this book that constitutes it being labeled paranormal. Not to mention, it’s just the exact same dynamic as you see in every other book that features vampires and werewolves. There’s nothing different or anything that sets it apart from the rest.
  • Ali Hazelwood seems to LOVE bathroom humor
    • “combed her hair with a toilet brush”
    • “a strip of toilet paper dangling from his khakis”
    • “Humans are worse…[they leave] the toilet seat up at night”
    • “a Were would crawl up the toilet to eat my ass”
    • “I plan to smear a pancake on the inside of a toilet”
    • “sound carries farther than shit”
    • someone smeared bird shit on an office stapler
    • someone gives off a “panties-shitting growl” (I wish I was kidding)
    • “boy, do I wish I could witness Father shitting himself.
    • “I’d have somehow managed to teach her to piss out of her nose.”
  • How the world is set up is that there are 3 territories; Human, Vampyre, and Were. This originally made me think that we were in one country with 3 sectioned off areas for each species, but no it’s just America. I’m sorry but hearing that a book is labeled “fantasy” and then still occurs in America is extremely annoying. I don’t want to hear about Air Force One or Las Vegas, I want you, as the author, to be able to create your own world and give an interesting political landscape if your book is supposed to be a fantasy. It’s called ✨world building✨, Ali.
  • Can we talk about how nothing happens in the first half of this book? It’s literally just a one way ticket to ramble station. The romance doesn’t occur until halfway through, and I don’t know if some people consider that a slow burn or something, but for me, a slow burn has to burn. I want pining, I want attention, I want witty and fun banter, I don’t want to see a woman that just narrates every single nuisance of a thought and a man that’s too scared to even have a conversation with her.
  • The only thing semi-interesting in this book was the story of the fmc’s friend. But even that was done terribly considering our precious lovely fmc didn’t even start looking for her until halfway through the book. That story line was the only thing in this book that you can consoder to be plot and it was done so incredibly poorly. It was just thrown to the side like a sack of potatoes really.
  • “I give him a long, pregnant look” — Huh? What? When have our eyes become pregnant? Wtf is a ‘pregnant look’? Considering the dynamic of the characters at this point, there’s no way she was looking at him and mentally saying ‘put a baby in me’ so wtf does this mean? It’s so nice to know that my eyes are now wombs with little eye fetuses inside and I can just give someone a look, that’s exactly what I needed to find out on a Sunday
  • There was a scene where one of the side characters literally just comes out of the woods naked and starts talking to the fmc as if that’s a completely normal thing. Like that was such a weird and truly unhinged thing to read? I have many questions for this author and why she thought that was a solid scene worthy of 5 stars. Like naked?! And the fmc literally says that this is weird and questions wtf is happening but doesn’t bother to say “Hey lady, I don’t want to really see your knockers flappin in the wind right now? Is that ok?”
  • This book is INCREDIBLY overhyped. Are we even reading the same book at this point? Or is this just another one of those books that people love to label as a “turn your brain off read”? Which just raises more questions tbh.
  • Reads like 2012 Wattpad fanfiction, and I don’t mean like the fanfiction that’s actually good and could genuinely be a story but more so like those weird ‘imagines’; giving very much y/n
  • AN ABSOLUTE FAILURE ON OMEGAVERSE; this book got so much hype just for the omegaverse label alone and Ali Hazelwood constantly using the knot emoji on instagram, and yet she did omegaverse so dirty with this book. This is more omegaverse-adjacent than straight up omegaverse and it’s really awful how she got so much press because I guess there are so many people that are just terrified to read anything monster fucker but there’s hardly any mention of it whatsoever. The sex scenes were so cringey because the mmc is too scared to put his inflatable baloon dick in a woman so up until the last chapter we just see the 2 characters fighting because the girl wants to have sex but the man is shaking in his boots.
  • The nickname name ‘Bleetch’ makes me want to drink bleach, sorry I had to say it.

Overall, if you’re someone that absolutely freaks off of Twilight and everything cliche and cringey about it but you also love those extremely cliche movies that are on the Hallmark channel, the. you’ll absolutely love this book. At least I can cross the Hate Read box off on my book bingo this year.


Things that are mentioned in this book that I find cringe or are now ruined for me forever:
  • fan fiction
  • the fmc wearing a galaxy t-shirt
  • “committing to the bit”
  • American Girl Dolls
  • Grand Theft Auto
  • the word ‘kerfuffle’
  • joking about someone being referred to as ‘roasting’
  • Mario Kart (thanks a lot Ali, you’ve ruined my favorite game for me)
  • calling anything a ‘flex’ (Ali you really need to back off for this one)
  • saying “Thank fuck”
  • naming any random thing Bob
  • I like to call things ‘fuck biscuits’ so I’m disappointed to find that the fmc calls people ‘fuckwaffle’ in this book.