I’m going to be honest, I wanted to love this book more because I love the author’s energy and the characters themselves are great.

However, I’m supremely disappointed by the way the plot played out in terms of climax(es) and “plot twists”. Now I’ll share why I’m disappointed but know that it is riddled with spoilers.

Overall, no points for these familial killers, like, what the heck? First her "dad," and then his uncle? I'm severely disappointed. This book needed to make it clear that Alex was playing the Chen family, so Michael's confession scene would make more sense (because as it was I still don't get why he confessed so quick, nor did it make sense he was suddenly an psycho), and the revelation about the uncle could have been more interesting. I'm really annoyed that we only learn about Alex going after the Chen family as his “long game” five seconds after it no longer even matters. It could have created excellent tension if we had known earlier as he actually fell for Ava. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get. It was an egregious error.  We barely get to enjoy the realization that he's been going after the wrong man because we didn't even know who he was going after. The author seemed too focused on "plot twisting" us, resulting in climaxes that were too fast and barely believable. It's harder to like or forgive Alex as readers because we didn't know about his whole long-term scheme. If we had known from the start, we could have had time to know him and still root for him as we watched him fall in love. All those stupid "I'm a danger to her" comments were just general, and I wish the author had just written "I will betray her for my family, just as her father did to me." You KNOW the author knew Ava couldn’t forgive him in 2 days with a whole thing as that, that’s why the last 20-30 pages are a bunch of time jumps. In the end, it’s still getting 3 stars because I will keep reading the series and I liked the characters in general I just wish the author didn’t over (and yet somehow under) think the plot’s climaxes.