Rereading 11/26/21_1730_12/233_5%

This book took me half a year to finish. And even longer to finally write a very short review, not exactly getting off to a good start here, huh? Plus I did temporarily DNF it in January because I had no intention to finish, but here I am.

That sounds so bad...

I, honestly, just kept losing interest in this one. Which was super disappointing because I wanted to like it. The general concept was interesting, but so many characters were a miss for me - especially Anya, and even though the overarching plot seemed interesting, not much happened here. I really really wanted to like Anya, she started as a character that seemed like she wasn't going to take any crap (and to be honest she didn't but it was done in a more obnoxious way) and be a really badass female character, but she was the biggest miss for me.
Everything came off as immature when it was related to her, which I don't think was the overall idea of her character, at least not for the most part. I also really disliked that although Lucien said no several times to her touching him, it was played off as a quirk to her personality and that she wasn't an "obedient lapdog" so she wasn't going to listen, as if that suddenly erases the fact that someone is not consenting (regardless of his physical arousal) - this happens so much in books like this, where they play it off because she's "quirky" or that they challenge themselves with proving the non-consenting person is "wrong" and that they "want it really" because their body has reacted slightly. The impact of this isn't just physical, it's psychological and emotional, and if someone says no, regardless of anything else, that should be respected. So even if it was made to be more of a quirk of hers, it's still not something I'm comfortable with. Not to mention the fact that she stalks him while being

Spoiler

invisible and trying to will him with her goddess powers to do sexual acts without his consent (once again...)

because she wanted him to.

But in all honesty, the best word to describe this experience - cringe. Even with all the sexual tension between the two, it was just lacking, and the back and forth also got a little tiring, it lost its appeal to me after oh so many times of it happening. To be honest, the only interesting parts for me were with the other guys, specifically Reyes and Paris. I just wanted to get to their books.

(At the point of writing this I started book three - mainly because the only highlight from book one and two was the hints at

Spoiler

Danika and Reyes

so I wanted to at least give their book a chance and out of the three it seems to be more for me, but man, Anya gets even more on my nerves in that one. Guess she really isn't the character for me...)

I like Anya and Lucien is okay, but I like Maddox and Ashlyn the most.

Let's be clear: this was kinda stupid. The characters, in the first half of the book, are just mentioning how much they want the other person, how turned on they are, etc., etc. This is true love exaggerated to the 10th power. I will give Showalter props for at least varying how she would say this. At least that made things interesting. The rest of the novel was just the characters trying to get the artifacts--which did not really progress at all. I guess what hides the awfulness of this novel is how good the writing is. But other than that, I just found myself quickly skimming the pages because of how repetitive it was. There is really no character growth or development. This would be okay if there was a plot that moved forward. However, that did not exist and therefore I lost interest very quickly.

I’ve reread this book multiple times now, and even though it’s not my go-to read-read, it stills a great read. It’s weird reading this now after the series has officially ended and we’re in a spin-off series, but only because the world-building is still building at this point. I guess this is as close as I’m ever going to get to reading a series again for the first time.

Great improvement over the first book. Parts of the story did slow down too much, and parts felt redundant... But I have high hopes for Showalter's writing and storytelling to keep improving.

That said, I'm not as excited about Reyes and Danika's book. Seems like it could easily be Maddox and Ashley 2.0.

7/30/2010

Full of some of the worst tropes in romance novels (e.g. horrible alpha-males, ditzy virginal lead female, coercion and rape, "convenient ending"), with some mild homophobia and lots of "slut-shaming" thrown in for good measure.

The worst thing about this novel: I decided to spend my precious reading time finishing it. *sigh*

Αμυδρώς καλύτερο από το προηγούμενο, κυρίως εξαιτίας των πρωταγωνιστών που μου ήταν πιο συμπαθείς από αυτούς του πρώτου. Κατα τα άλλα μια από τα ίδια. Το background της θέλει πολύ δουλειά για μένα, κουραστική φλυαρία, εύκολες λύσεις και το τέλος δεν με έπεισε.
Και ναι, κάπου εδώ παίρνω την απόφαση ότι αυτή η σειρά δεν είναι για μένα!