A review by jrayereads
This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings

3.0

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sapphic enemies to lovers set during the Harlem Renaissance with vampires and great black representation? This book should have been a slam dunk for me, but unfortunately it didn’t hit as I hoped it would. I really struggled to get through this one. 

First off, the good. I really liked our two main characters as well as most of the side characters. Layla and Elise both had really clear motivations that I found believable and well written. The premise, atmosphere, and setting were also well done and very immersive. The discussions of race and the themes of medical exploitation that have often been inflicted on black bodies throughout US history was compelling as well.

The biggest issues for me with this book was with the pacing and the writing. The central conflict is surrounding a mystery that forces Layla and Elise to work together. This ended up making the plot pretty circular where we would see them meet up to try and unravel what is going on, have some banter, and then go back to their separate worlds for the fallout of whatever mischief they caused. And then it went on in that exact order for a couple hundred pages. The writing was sometimes clunky and awkward and there would occasionally be moments where certain phrases in dialogue would be overused. There were often times when a conversation did not flow very well and that made it hard to stick with. 

Also, for an enemies to lovers book, there was so little tension built. I believed that they hated each other, even though it wasn’t explained why until MUCH later into the book, but there wasn’t much done with that aside from repetitive bickering, so the romance fell short for me.

Overall I was impressed by the concept of this book but the execution was a bit lacking. I would definitely see what Dennings does in the future, because I’m sure her writing will only get better with time.