Bitch she got me again with this cliffhanger

Savage Little Lies is the second book in the Court Legacy series. This book should be read after Dirty Wicked Prince as this book is the continuation of Dorian and Sloane.

Something happens at the beginning of the book, and Dorian finds out something about Sloan's caretaker. He's not sure if he can trust her now. He wants nothing to do with her.

So many secrets and lies come out in this book. There were a few plots turns that I was not expecting. I really loved this book, and couldn’t put it down. I'm very excited to see where it goes next!

Interesting turn for the story, although she telegraphed it pretty hard. It does make me want to read what happens next. I would have rated it higher if this book had better editing. The word choice and sentence structure is rough. Like the first book, the author uses cuff/cuffing in weird ways. Someone is described as cuffing their arms 11 times. Can only imagine what is being described here.

These cliffhangers have me by the neck every time

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I absolutely refused to DNF this book when I was so close to finishing, but I also couldn't bring myself to finish as the adrenaline that fueled my voracious absorption of the first book disappeared whilst reading this one.

Thus, I've been letting it take up space on my currently reading shelf for months, taunting me every time I look. As you might have guessed I've decided that I refuse to allow this to happen any longer - mostly because my annoyance that my currently reading shelf doesn't actually reflect my current reads has finally won out over my aversion.

I immediately was struck by why I quit in the first place.

There is something inherently silly about a bunch of 17 year olds being considered so intimidating. Do many rich, white 17 year old boys in small towns hold an ungodly amount of power? Undoubtedly and unfortunately. But, the whole 'we'll ruin you if you come for our family' thing is not something I can take seriously from a bunch of entitled brats with anger issues and too much money to waste.

It's also something I have very little patience for now in general given how this kind of mindset has been specifically linked to a lot of the injustice going on in real life. It's exhausting having to argue for my rights as a person all the time. These obnoxious jerks throwing their weight around because they can and being rewarded for it completely lacks appeal to me based on where I am in my life right now. It's part of why I had to put a moratorium on mafia romances. The lack of respect for female personhood became too overwhelming.

In a better written book I could still have had a good time as I absolutely do still indulge in many of the tropes presented in this series on Ao3 so I'm not immune to the concepts, but I was not enjoying it here. The edge of realism ruined the escapism.

A major mistake, I feel, that directly resulted in my abandonment was that half of this book is Sloane and Dorian totally separated. Events trickle over from Book 1 and Dorian flees with his family. He accuses Sloane of being involved so he ghosts her. Everyone else in his little squad subsequently follows suit except for Wolf who has his doubts about her supposed involvement.

Wolf manipulates Sloane into joining him for his senior art project to get closer to her for spy purposes. In this time I completely lost interest in Sloane and Dorian because Sloane and Wolf literally were serving the actual enemies to lovers realness Sloane and Dorian were supposed to 100x better. Similar to when Dorian and Sloane first crossed paths, the two started off totally at odds on top of Wolf's inexplicable animosity towards her.

Over the course of this book, you read about two people who thought they couldn't be further apart slowly come to realize they're more alike then they first realized. The stilted conversations become private moments of shared vulnerability and then grudging respect for one another as people to genuine affinity. It was super endearing to witness.

Then whoops here comes Dorian who barely ever talks to her, is quick to freeze her out and seems to only want to own her on principle realizing he was an idiot, but by that point I'd already moved on. The momentum of their relationship was irreparably damaged. Having the contrast of Wolf who had a darkness to him, but was proving himself to be real partner material for the long haul ruined everything for me.

I knew Wolf wouldn't win because the second love interest never does and honestly he wasn’t really presented as an option. I only wished he was one. Still somehow O'Neill did worse than just not letting him be a viable choice.

If you, like me, started to ship them then you now are unintentionally guilty of shipping her with her twin brother as it's revealed in the last few pages that she was possibly kidnapped or something as a baby. So congratulations for accidentally being into incest I guess.

The sex scenes were okay. Dorian is gone for a long time as I said before so nothing happens for a long time. When he does appear it’s more of the same from book 1. It’s objectively well written, but I found it very by the numbers. Only a step above a fanfiction M after the great purge on the scale.

The second half of the book is dedicated to Dorian earning Sloane’s trust back. It’s sweet enough, but I hate when books just skip rapidly through time. It makes it difficult for me to get invested being told that so much effort is being exerted over time rather than it being proved in text. I need evidence.

There’s this whole secret plot going on with Sloane’s family and Dorian’s grandfather. It goes nowhere in this one so I imagine it will be completed in the next one since it’s a trilogy. We know he’s a horrible man due to Dorian’s chapters, however, in the story he doesn’t actually do anything. It’s all speculation in the present circumstances so I wasn’t ever nervous for the characters or anticipating the ending of the storyline.

Anyways, it wasn’t bad. It mostly wasn’t my cup of tea. I read romance on whims when I feel I can turn my brain off enough to enjoy it. My brain rebooted in the middle and I’m afraid I wasn’t able to keep that head empty energy to stick the landing. I do believe there are things that could be improved, however, I also acknowledge that romances like this are written and read for reasons outside normal standards for literature.. That’s not to say that romance is less than inherently or that romance cannot be phenomenal or that this book can't be considered quality in it's own right.

There are times when it’s still necessary to point out obvious flaws even in the case of comfort reads as some things are too egregious to let slide even if it’s in a fluff piece. My point is that this does its job fine and that’s all you can really ask for.

I'm chewing my nails waiting for book 3!!! Where is it? I already finished the parents' books and I want moref!