A review by ardentlyandi
The Grim Reaper's Lawyer by Mea Monique

I went into this book hoping for a quick read to break up my thriller books. Unfortunately, this didn’t work for me. Another reviewer referred to this book as ‘disjointed’ and honestly, I think that’s the best way to describe it. Nothing feels quite connected, the plot has random things that come out of nowhere without much, if any, foreshadowing. The plot armor here is thick. Everything seems to go wrong and then very conveniently, everything seems to work itself out without a hitch. Joyce seems to get out of any issue with ease. I think there’s only so many coincidences you can have in a book before it becomes boring to read. This book would probably have been a 2 star read for me but once I read the sex scene after Joyce collects souls with Joey, it was immediately a 0 for me. This was kinda repulsive to read. I don’t care if Joyce eventually was into it, she tried to leave the room and he pinned her. Why are we romanticizing this? I understand the author wanted to portray Aiden as an assertive partner but this was not it. There is a million, actually consensual ways this could’ve been written. I have genuinely never been effected by things like this in books but this scene made my stomach drop. It really requires some kind of warning. I understand some people enjoy consensual non-consent but there was no consent actually leading up to the sexual acts in this scene, Joyce tries to leave *and* told him no initially, if I remember correctly. Also Aiden acts as if sex is transactional, that she owes him it for upsetting him. And the fact that Joyce at the end of this tells him that she feels the safest she ever has because of him, this feels like a gross romanticization of SA to me personally. It’s safe to say that I will not be reading the next book in this series.

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