A review by daniela_endless_tbr
Apparently, I'm Torture by Demi Blaize

lighthearted medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes

3.5

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/6.

🌶️🌶️.5/5.

This was my first book by this author so I was excited to give it a go. To be honest when I saw the title, I was convinced. I was intrigued for sure and the title was what I needed to push me to read this.

It took me a bit to get into the story at first. Once I was like “okay, I like where this is going”, I was invested in these characters even though I had a couple “issues” with it.

The timeline, 5 years ago and Now, were confusing at times and I wonder why we had so much of the past. I’m not a fan of that but it sort of worked.

Lily was adorable but her naïveté had no bounds. She is a people pleaser and she lets everyone take advantage of her kind heart and almost bully her. That’s absolutely the opposite of me so maybe you can call it preference but it was hard seeing where the story was going and Lily be so clueless.

I did like her enough to read it till the end but there’s a moment in the story where she stands up for herself but not fully and I’ll get to it later. I think the saving grace was Mia when it came down to this.

Shawn was an *** wherever he saw Lily after they went separate ways 5 years ago. Why? Because he loved her so much then and she had a boyfriend so he didn’t tell her how he felt and bolted. Mind you, they were like best friends.

To me once Shawn made the decision to go to a different school, he was a coward when he didn’t tell Lily his feelings and instead said hurtful things. He just had nothing to lose and instead he decided to tell her it was unbearable to work with her and torture. 🙄

He was a nice guy and I liked him but the little things aren’t forgotten.

I really liked them together. Once they decided to start something, they went all in which I appreciated .

Now Trevor, Lily’s ex and “Boss”, and Stacey are horrible. The fact that it was so obvious what was going on, Shawn never asked questions nor did he find weird certain behavior. All of this when it comes to Stacey.

Trevor showed his colors once Lily broke up with him so no surprise there but the fact that when everything came to an end, Trevor had all the consequences and Stacey, that 2 faced B****, walked away with a slap on the wrist and guess what? Started working with Shawn again. I’m sorry but what now?! She was horrible 5 years ago and she was horrible now. Oh but she was blackmailed. Is that reason enough to be so condescending to Lily and  being so rude and just… all the things! Mia was my saving grace honestly. Mia stood up to everyone on Lily’s behalf and she definitely saw the same things I did and so she called Stacey on her bs which I appreciated.

I just don’t get why Lily forgave Stacey and in fact was grateful to her because she saved her career. Stacey shouldn’t have one to begin with. Lily is the type to always see the good in people but there’s a difference between being naive and seeing the best of people and being dumb. Stacey never did or said anything nice to Lily and the ‘saving the career thing’, she was did what was right and mind you, she didn’t did what she did because Lily would lose everything. No no, she did what she did because Shawn decided to take the fall and she wanted to save his career because her career depended on his too. She was awful and she had no consequences whatsoever and I don’t like how all of things concluded.

Tristan and Nikki are so adorable together and I think I need to read their book. Also that title is calling out to me. 🙈

I’m a Mia fan, if that wasn’t obvious before , and I thought her book would be next since we had a little tease but I’m cool with waiting.

All in all this was a good enough read but my “hang ups” ultimately brought the story down for me.

I’m still willing to continue the series and see if I’ll continue later on.

* I read an arc of this book. *