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melluuvsbooks 's review for:
Red Thorns
by Rina Kent
Wow. I don’t really know where to start with this. I love Rina Kent. Royal Elite is a reread for me, and I was so excited she was doing another NA series… but this was not good.
- this is supposed to be college kids - not even freshman, these characters are supposed to be in their last year, so like 21/22. And yet they all act like immature horribly behaved high school students.
- the author’s understanding of small town life in the US is glaringly lacking. The premise of this book makes it seem like a small town would have a schooling system where the HS and college is somehow a continuous thing… most small towns do not have colleges, besides MAYBE a community college, but those don’t have elite football teams, if they even offer sports. You would be unlikely to have all your HS friends end up at the same college and all be on the cheer and football teams. It just makes no sense at all. It sounds like it’s mixed up with how the school system is set up in Europe. The US is not like that. I’m very confused why Alpha and beta readers didn’t catch that. It was very distracting.
- it’s cool to have a Japanese h, but it’s not cool to have people (grown ups about to enter the workforce, mind you) relentlessly bombard her with racism. And all the references to anime porn… very cringe-y and not super realistic. Maybe a 16 or 17 year old would act that way, but not an entire team of cheerleaders and football players who are 21 or older and working on higher education in the states. It wouldn’t be a monolith of racists and racist enablers.
- this book felt like a watered down version of Untouchable, but missing the charm and heart and just missing the point completely - all of the mechanics, even similar scenes, but none of the depth or nuance.
- the kink was ridiculous. They’ve barely had 2 short conversations and he just *knows* she’d like to pretend to be raped. That’s utter nonsense. They are basically strangers. It would make sense for him to force his own kink on her (but that’s not very PC…), but the way this is written? Nah.
- I love the cliche “bet” trope. I was so excited that this was gonna include that… but it isn’t well executed. Didn’t make sense.
- there’s no build up - no chemistry - no emotion - no glimmer of real affection
- not a single likable character - the h is just self absorbed and bitchy, and the H is just nuts.
- hot sex scenes, and dirty talk, but that’s the only thing here to enjoy and I need more than that
- this is supposed to be college kids - not even freshman, these characters are supposed to be in their last year, so like 21/22. And yet they all act like immature horribly behaved high school students.
- the author’s understanding of small town life in the US is glaringly lacking. The premise of this book makes it seem like a small town would have a schooling system where the HS and college is somehow a continuous thing… most small towns do not have colleges, besides MAYBE a community college, but those don’t have elite football teams, if they even offer sports. You would be unlikely to have all your HS friends end up at the same college and all be on the cheer and football teams. It just makes no sense at all. It sounds like it’s mixed up with how the school system is set up in Europe. The US is not like that. I’m very confused why Alpha and beta readers didn’t catch that. It was very distracting.
- it’s cool to have a Japanese h, but it’s not cool to have people (grown ups about to enter the workforce, mind you) relentlessly bombard her with racism. And all the references to anime porn… very cringe-y and not super realistic. Maybe a 16 or 17 year old would act that way, but not an entire team of cheerleaders and football players who are 21 or older and working on higher education in the states. It wouldn’t be a monolith of racists and racist enablers.
- this book felt like a watered down version of Untouchable, but missing the charm and heart and just missing the point completely - all of the mechanics, even similar scenes, but none of the depth or nuance.
- the kink was ridiculous. They’ve barely had 2 short conversations and he just *knows* she’d like to pretend to be raped. That’s utter nonsense. They are basically strangers. It would make sense for him to force his own kink on her (but that’s not very PC…), but the way this is written? Nah.
- I love the cliche “bet” trope. I was so excited that this was gonna include that… but it isn’t well executed. Didn’t make sense.
- there’s no build up - no chemistry - no emotion - no glimmer of real affection
- not a single likable character - the h is just self absorbed and bitchy, and the H is just nuts.
- hot sex scenes, and dirty talk, but that’s the only thing here to enjoy and I need more than that