the spicy scenes were good (albeit a bit degrading), but they obviously couldn't carry the whole plot... Ava deserved so much better than Alex Fucking Volkov!! I've never understood why male love interests are made so unlikable, abhorrent even, and Alex was no exception — he was aggressive, possessive, controlling, violent and rude as hell. Yeah, the sex scenes can do without one's personality, but the rest of the plot and the so-called love story in its center were totally ruined for me by Alex.

Hell, he even turns out to be a murderer, and I will NOT excuse murder as a means of revenge; that's the worst thing anyone can do, and it just made him the very person (a killer) he originally detested for doing so. ON TOP OF IT ALL he even got away with it with his money and connections, because obviously an asshole love interest must also be filthy rich and talented and manipulative and immoral and hdhfhr yeah you can probably sense my anger towards him lol

ALSO I can't believe I'm saying this, but for the aforementioned reasons this book was at some moments WORSE THAN COLLEEN HOOVER (and that really is an achievement).

why must every tiktok romance have protagonists with dead parents AND deep traumas AND abusive parents AND bloody murder — is it just that you can't write a story interesting enough without all that sensationalism? this really was soooo sick and twisted *SICK AND TWISTED*

ALSO him buying every single piece of Ava's art in London is NOT romantic, it's just another manifestation of his possessive behaviour and fucking selfish as it prevents Ava from
being recognized by any actual art people who would be relevant to her career :)))) he literally does not want her to advance in her career so that he can keep her dependant on himself FUCK HIM