leonalikesliterature's reviews
354 reviews

I was obsessed with this book from chapter one and couldn’t put it down!

I enjoyed this book a lot more than the first one. I thought Julian and Constance had a more compelling and equal dynamic than Poppy and Archer. I thought I liked Archer, but Julian had me kicking my feet  🥰 I adored him and the banter between Constance and him was wonderful to read (although the miscommunication was a tad bit overdone). I really liked that although Julian is still more sexually experienced, Constance is an active member of their relations and doesn’t just do what he wants to do, which is a refreshing representation from the “clueless virgin” trope.

I loved the spicy scenes! The smut and sexual tension was so beautifully crafted. Although their first full sex scene kind of ended disappointingly, I will continue to think about the scene in the wig closet and the scene in the bedroom with the apple forever. 

The ended was very sweet and although it was a bit overly dramatic, I still loved it. I absolutely adored this book and might come back to it in the future! 

Loved this book! 

The romance and tension was beautifully built, and the writing was so good! The smut was top tier ✨

My only dislike was the

reveal of Archer at the Charlotte’s Street House. I felt it was unnecessary and tainted the relationship between Archer and Poppy. It definitely counted as infidelity and there isn’t a good reconciliation after his betrayal. He is just forgiven because Poppy is into BDSM. I thought it was unnecessary too because it’s already basically revealed that he used to visit the Charlotte’s Street, so I really wish the cheating had just been omitted.

 

Archer and Poppy’s tension also started to burn me out by the 75% mark. It was getting repetitive with their lack of communication and brooding. Overall though, I really loved Archer and Poppy. Even despite Archer’s betrayal, I still adored his character.

Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I will be reading the sequels! 

For all the hype I’ve seen for this book, it was so disappointing! 

The writing was really bad. It was cringey and cheesy, but on top of that it was horribly edited. At least the ebook version I read, there were a dozens of grammatical errors every chapter! It was super distracting. I’m not a stickler for grammar, but it was like reading somebody’s 1st draft. 

The romance was insta-love and I really felt like there was no chemistry or build up in the relationship between the two leads. I literally didn’t care about any of the characters. There were so many  characters and none of their personalities were developed.

I see the vision, but the execution was not good. Definitely needed more editing from a grammatical and writing standpoint. 

Can’t even hate read this book. It’s so cringe. 

I feel very conflicted about this book because there was a lot I loved about it but there was a lot that I hated about it.

The first thing I loved was the world building and fantasy elements in this book. The fantasy is so beautiful and greatly represents Latine Indigenous mythology and culture. I loved the cadejos! Their powers and communities were so interesting and unlike anything I’ve read before, it was like a twist on werewolves but also so much better!

Next, the writing was beautiful. Although I started to get frustrated with the pacing as it was really, really slow, the descriptive imagery was very poetic.

Onto the things I hated.

The relationship between Xochi and Sal was painful to read. Although I liked Sal at the start of the book, the more I read, the more I disliked him.

He was possessive, controlling, and sexually aggressive. Aside from the fact that he threw out her birth control and ADHD meds, treats her like a prisoner, and basically assaults her multiple times, Xochi was also genuinely terrified of him in multiple chapters.  Her fear of him is never even addressed, it’s just forgotten about, and then they just reach a lovey dovey stage which solves all their problems.

I feel like a big problem was that Xochi was described as a sassy, plus sized mc, but she really isn’t sassy until the end of the book. She is easily manipulated by both her mother and Sal and it’s kind of just sad. Only later does Xochi gain any independence. Although it’s framed that life in the compound is freeing for Xochi, in the beginning, her life in the compound really isn’t any different than her living with her abusive and controlling mother.

The sex stuff was getting WAY out of hand for me. Xochi and Sal were sooooo cringe sometimes. They would be arguing with some literal random person and share the most graphic, pornographic details about their sex life as a flex? and I was so confused why. 😭 It was so painful to read. Not even to mention that they literally

fuck on a dead body as revenge. That was so weird and nasty. Hated it.

I never thought I would read a book where I would think that there’s too much sex, but this book made me a prude lol.

There’s too much going on in this book that just gets dropped, which was disappointing and frustrating, especially for how damn long this book is. There are multiple subplots

with Xochi’s family, this medical cadejo torture slave ring, and this broken goddess

that literally just gets dropped and forgotten about and I’m not reading the next book to figure that shit out.

I was frustrated that this was called a Dark Fantasy Romance because I think that led to confusion for me. I would have preferred this to be a romance with dark fantasy elements, rather than a dark romance with fantasy elements. I think the dark romance was what I hated the most about this book. Anyways, I am just glad this book is over. I feel like 2.5 stars is generous.  There was a lot I really liked, despite what I hated. I think I would’ve really loved this book if like 4-5 scenes were just taken out of it.