A review by itsmoisama
Spectacular by Stephanie Garber

dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

This was a mess, I expected that the only thing I won’t enjoy is that it’s focusing more on Tella but no, Stephanie picked the worst story line possible and used it in this novella.

At first, I was annoyed with how selfish and inconsiderate Tella was and how she viewed her relationship didn’t feel right, but those thoughts were gone when the story started to take a very dark turn with Tella going to the audition, too many sexual references were made and they felt very gross but I thought I can ignore them but then she was kidnapped and this took a turn from fun to dangerous.

When she gets kidnapped she’s clearly in danger and doesn’t want to be there, she gets forced inside a room with a stranger who claims to be Legend and he starts making sexual remarks towards her, kisses her, and touches her body without any consent (and she very clearly says no to him!!), and so far as the readers we aren’t supposed to know who her captor is and it’s never made clear until the very end how much she knew, to me I just saw a character get SA’d and it was so disturbing to watch with illustrations too, I usually avoid these things in books so I was horrified to see this scene and see how into it she became despite never being really sure if it’s Legend or not, so like she pretty much cheated too??

How was I ever supposed to find these things romantic:

““It’s really cute how you think you still have any power right now.” Her kidnapper put a hand on her hip, and then the villain slipped his fingers brazenly under her skirt and rubbed her bare skin.”

“That’s what a captive would do. But the hand on her leg was warm and soft and possessive in a way that shouldn’t have felt as good as it did. For just a second, Tella decided to give in.”

“Tella tried not to sigh or moan or beg him to never stop kissing her, but he was so very good with his mouth.”



The fact this was marketed as a cute holiday novella and the age range for it starting at 12 year old is disgusting and disturbing, sexual assault is still sexual assault even if it’s inside a relationship, I genuinely can’t believe this went through editors and no one made a change to this? 

Other stuff I wanted to mention:
  • Jacks never shows up which is strange because I feel like for a story so focused on Tella one would think he’ll get at least mentioned.
  • Scarlett literally had 2 scenes in the whole thing and one of them they didn’t even bother draw.
  • Speaking of the illustrations, they are gorgeous and if it weren’t for the shitty story I would’ve loved them more but it seems like the artist focused a lot on, imo, unnecessary stuff while leaving out things like characters descriptions which I though would be nice to see but as I said, we only Scarlett illustrations at the very beginning and that’s it, it’s like Stephanie doesn’t give a shit about her at all.
  • I can’t believe Scarlett was in on this whole thing, the Scarlett I know and love would’ve rejected this dumb plan from the very beginning.

Overall thoughts: 
Stephanie wanted to write a YA dark romance in disguised as a cute holiday book and I despise everything about this novella.

This book is the reason I’ll only read her upcoming releases on Libby first before spending money on it, what a waste of time.
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