⚠️ TW ⚠️ : R*pe

I was really excited to start reading the book, the plot sounded great so I had high hopes. However I can't say I was gripped throughout the book until the last quarter but even then, the ending felt very rushed. It felt like there were either a lot of edits made to shorten the book and detail was omitted or the author lost their way, personally I felt there was a lack of direction in the plot throughout the book, the author was trying to do too much and make it sound really complex (potentially intentionally trying to misdirect the reader) however for me it came across as a scattergun approach of topics wanting to be included without a logical approach and/or structure.

One of my biggest issues in the book was about half way through when r*pe was mentioned almost constantly until the end. Didn't add anything to the story by mentioning it that much and felt wholly unnecessary. The repetition of sexual assault I can imagine could be quite triggering for survivors and therefore I wouldn't recommend reading this book. Even if you didn't know a man wrote this book, you'd be able to tell from the laissez faire mentions of r*pe throughout.

To make matters worse, Kat warns Tapo that she'll be filing a formal complaint against him not because of their predictable affair but because he/his wife won't let her continue working with him on the case despite her being one of the main protagonists of the story (albeit quite briefly). It felt like the author panicked with the storyline, created a female protagonist but is still incredibly old fashioned regarding in gender roles and feminism.

Don't get me wrong, there were times throughout the book where I was still surprised and intrigued and that's why I've rated it 3 stars, but it wasn't gripping or descriptive enough for me, there were a lot of character holes and predictable storylines and a lack of depth to each storyline. In summary, I won't be reading anything else from the Carnivia trilogy.