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A review by entirelybonkerz
Hooked by Emily McIntire
2.0
When people told me I'd roast the fck out of this book, I figured it would at least be humorous, or maybe give me tons of things to make fun of, but no... It didn't give me a single thing. I am almost sad I wasted an entire day on this.
The premise: I think it's pretty great. A dark peter-pan retelling, Hook is actually the love interest, Wendy is Peter's son and Peter is his worst enemy. It had absolutely everything to succeed and yet...
The Smut: oh god, maybe it's me? but "good girl" was muttered over 20 times. The good girl to page ratio is absurd. He even called a guy he was "torturing" GOOD BOY.
The Darkness (?) where the fuck was it??? I mean if you consider this a DARK romance because Hook says: "A gruesome image of me thrusting inside her on top of her dad's remains, my cum dripping between her thigs and mixing with the blood beneath us" - I get it, it's a weird sentence to put into a book, so MAKE THE CHARACTER MATCH THE ENERGY. But no, Hook would have some weird and uncomfortable intrusive thoughts from time to time but he never acted on any of them.
I am actually soooo exhaaaaaausted of characters being painted as "WOW SO DARK MUCH RAGE MUCH DARKNESS HE'S THE VILLAIN" and they just kiss the FMC's ass during the entire book , run a "business" like it's high school and talk like fucking Dracula (he was supposed to be British but I guess she got lost there and mixed them up)
Everything feels so LOW STAKE.
"What are you to me?"
"Your worst nightmare"
AND THEN HE PROCEEDED TO CUDDLE HER FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT, LMAO.
People love the idea of a villain, they love the idea of a "DaRk" read... but no one is actually brave enough to execute it. They just get lost trying to make the villain redeemable and they just turn into the most shallow and inconsistent character.
Maybe it's me... I understand why this is a favorite to so many people.
However, you promised me a Captain Hook and you gave me a Captain "Don't get my cashmere suit dirty with your 2 dollar stains" (he actually says this).
It's just humiliating, it feels like child's play. It feels like watching a cartoon villain trying to be evil but unable to because it's actually streaming on Disney + and they have to keep it PG.
It was so painfully forced, and it makes me so sad because Hook is a great character. The premise is genius, she gave him a dark past (being molested as a child) - even though this trauma is completely forgotten every time there was a sex scene.
She added the clock, which is a great symbolism... I just think there WAS SO MUCH to be explored that was completely ignored for the sake of smut.
Don't even get me started on Wendy. A bag of flour has more personality. This just feels like a copy of every single "dark" book that has ever been popular on tiktok. It's recycling and it infuriates me because the IDEA IS AMAZING.
So yeah, you got a fantastic tale like Peter Pan and you gave Wendy a choker and started calling her pet. Then you removed any drop of personality the real character had, and made Hook say "such a dirty mouth for such a pretty face" every time she cursed. Because, of course, god forbid a woman has enough personality to FUCKING CURSE.
"The kiss is anything but sweet, it was poison and death."
"You think I am crazy? I will show you fucking crazy." And then he proceeds to... HAVE SEX WITH HER.
Wow, you really did show her huh? You made her cum with vanilla sex as a punishment. You are such a crazy fella, YOU ARE WILD.
He does that twice. LMAO, The second time is when she is trying to run away from him and he goes: I'LL TEACH YOU A LESSON and his lesson is to give her an orgasm and move on with his day.
And instead of being hot, it was just underwhelming. Just because you TELL ME a character is scary, doesn't mean shit if you don't SHOW ME.
So yeah, just another fantastic tale being wasted on a badly written mafia romance with a stupid FMC and an underwhelming male character who thinks "running strip clubs, having a lot of money and threatening people, while simultaneously having a dark past" is the same as being a dark character.
Spoiler alert: It's not.
Also, why the fuck did Wendy ask to be choked as a VIRGIN, why was she even a virgin in the first place? I am so freaking tired of the virgin trope, it just makes the entire book sound like it was actually written by a man XD (but this is just my personal taste)