July 9, 2024
2.00!
“Hate me enough to make me want you.” I cup her jaw, feeling her eyes burning into mine. “Ruin me"
What a waste of potential tbh. I would say that despite enjoying the first book I had minimal expectations so I cant really blame this book being bad on my expectations because they were not high at all lol. The writing in this book was so mid like 😭 the author just went on writing the same thing over and over again until we reached the last bits which was supposed to be mind blowing but came off as too predictable. I did enjoy the first 80 to 100 pages to be honest but then the constant push and pull and the way the author filled this book with too many quotes that they didn't even hit like they should and 😭😭 I cant even start at how tropey it was like surely you cannot write all the tropes in this book and expect all of them to hit the readers the same way. It just got so claustrophobic in there that I wanted to finish it.
Paedyn our FMC 😮💨 I really liked her in the first book but I was so frustrated when it came to her character in this one, dont get me wrong I still enjoyed reading her point of view but I feared that my eyes would be stuck at the back of my head if I read Paedyn saying "I would not hesitate to kill him next time" and not doing that the next time one more time😭 because saying it once or twice makes sense but more than that and you look like a fool which unfortunately Paedyn did look like for majority of the book. It's that I thought with how things ended in book 1 Paedyn would put up a little bit of fight and she did for like 80 pages but then it vanished?? and I hated that so much.
Kai, I enjoyed his point of view as well and I did have fun reading about him and I liked that we got an insight of his past, I also liked his flirty nature and the way he would speak of her and his dialogues in general but when you're sent out to kill her and you're trying to be string enough to do that YOU DONT START FLIRTING WITH THEM but I had almost very little complaints with Kai because even poor writing can't do Kai wrong. As for Kitt, I found his pov similar to how I felt Apollo's pov was in ACFTL.....boring and unnecessary.
The plot was where?? for a romantasy there was barely any fantasy in it. Dont get me wrong, if it was a full romance book it would've been an easy 3.5-4 stars but as a romantasy it failed to deliver on anything but the romance and even a part of that was annoying. The author said that this book was a build up to the third book but there was honestly nothing building up until like the last 30-50 pages and I am not even lying when I say this this could have been a 100-150 paged novella if we keep in mind the important things that happen and if you want to add more romance to that but dont want to overfill it 200 pages at best and it would have been perfect, would have had us at the edge of our seats and would have given us some actual content in one go rather than it being dispersed among filler scenes and it would've been more easy to write and would have given Lauren more time to focus on book 3 so she could have delivered a massive finale. A little bit of this book was about Kai going after Paedyn (100 pages at best) and then it was them trying to go back to Ilya. The ending I saw coming because I honestly saw no other suitable way to end this book and basing it off peoples reactions my suspicions were confirmed so even for what most peopled saved this book, failed for me.
The romance, I did enjoy the dialogues exchanged, the tensions and angst at times (until it got too much) and some of the cute moments that they shared but one thing that this book lacked was slow burn because everything happened so fast and wasnt this supposed to be enemies to lovers?? what I read was definitely not enemies to love it was two people being in denial like the constant push and pull was fun at the beginning but it got so tedious because it was the same thing repeated until the end and I wanted scream at them. I wanted more slow burn like yes the first book was slow burn enough but when you end powerless saying that Kai would be going out to kill Pae you would expect more fresher slow burn and thats why I did not really love the first kiss, it was written well but I just didnt like how fast it happened. It could have happened later on as well. I do admit that there was angst and tension but it didn't hit me. I liked the development the character got through romance but theres this thing called balancing a book and there was no balance here and tbh if I wanted that I would have just picked up a romance novel instead of this.
I did enjoy some parts of it and I liked Kai + the fast paced nature of this book and I can see people who only want KaiPae romantic moments would really enjoy this book but honestly I wanted that but only to an extent with balance, political intrigue and a plot because otherwise I would've just read When Gracie Met the Grump which is sitting right beside me.
Overall, A disappointing experience and im hoping that the conclusion redeems itself with more Mak scenes.
~~~
Look what just came in the mail 🙈
•Buddy reading with the one and only Roxy
“Hate me enough to make me want you.” I cup her jaw, feeling her eyes burning into mine. “Ruin me"
What a waste of potential tbh. I would say that despite enjoying the first book I had minimal expectations so I cant really blame this book being bad on my expectations because they were not high at all lol. The writing in this book was so mid like 😭 the author just went on writing the same thing over and over again until we reached the last bits which was supposed to be mind blowing but came off as too predictable. I did enjoy the first 80 to 100 pages to be honest but then the constant push and pull and the way the author filled this book with too many quotes that they didn't even hit like they should and 😭😭 I cant even start at how tropey it was like surely you cannot write all the tropes in this book and expect all of them to hit the readers the same way. It just got so claustrophobic in there that I wanted to finish it.
Paedyn our FMC 😮💨 I really liked her in the first book but I was so frustrated when it came to her character in this one, dont get me wrong I still enjoyed reading her point of view but I feared that my eyes would be stuck at the back of my head if I read Paedyn saying "I would not hesitate to kill him next time" and not doing that the next time one more time😭 because saying it once or twice makes sense but more than that and you look like a fool which unfortunately Paedyn did look like for majority of the book. It's that I thought with how things ended in book 1 Paedyn would put up a little bit of fight and she did for like 80 pages but then it vanished?? and I hated that so much.
Kai, I enjoyed his point of view as well and I did have fun reading about him and I liked that we got an insight of his past, I also liked his flirty nature and the way he would speak of her and his dialogues in general but when you're sent out to kill her and you're trying to be string enough to do that YOU DONT START FLIRTING WITH THEM but I had almost very little complaints with Kai because even poor writing can't do Kai wrong. As for Kitt, I found his pov similar to how I felt Apollo's pov was in ACFTL.....boring and unnecessary.
The plot was where?? for a romantasy there was barely any fantasy in it. Dont get me wrong, if it was a full romance book it would've been an easy 3.5-4 stars but as a romantasy it failed to deliver on anything but the romance and even a part of that was annoying. The author said that this book was a build up to the third book but there was honestly nothing building up until like the last 30-50 pages and I am not even lying when I say this this could have been a 100-150 paged novella if we keep in mind the important things that happen and if you want to add more romance to that but dont want to overfill it 200 pages at best and it would have been perfect, would have had us at the edge of our seats and would have given us some actual content in one go rather than it being dispersed among filler scenes and it would've been more easy to write and would have given Lauren more time to focus on book 3 so she could have delivered a massive finale. A little bit of this book was about Kai going after Paedyn (100 pages at best) and then it was them trying to go back to Ilya. The ending I saw coming because I honestly saw no other suitable way to end this book and basing it off peoples reactions my suspicions were confirmed so even for what most peopled saved this book, failed for me.
The romance, I did enjoy the dialogues exchanged, the tensions and angst at times (until it got too much) and some of the cute moments that they shared but one thing that this book lacked was slow burn because everything happened so fast and wasnt this supposed to be enemies to lovers?? what I read was definitely not enemies to love it was two people being in denial like the constant push and pull was fun at the beginning but it got so tedious because it was the same thing repeated until the end and I wanted scream at them. I wanted more slow burn like yes the first book was slow burn enough but when you end powerless saying that Kai would be going out to kill Pae you would expect more fresher slow burn and thats why I did not really love the first kiss, it was written well but I just didnt like how fast it happened. It could have happened later on as well. I do admit that there was angst and tension but it didn't hit me. I liked the development the character got through romance but theres this thing called balancing a book and there was no balance here and tbh if I wanted that I would have just picked up a romance novel instead of this.
I did enjoy some parts of it and I liked Kai + the fast paced nature of this book and I can see people who only want KaiPae romantic moments would really enjoy this book but honestly I wanted that but only to an extent with balance, political intrigue and a plot because otherwise I would've just read When Gracie Met the Grump which is sitting right beside me.
Overall, A disappointing experience and im hoping that the conclusion redeems itself with more Mak scenes.
~~~
Look what just came in the mail 🙈
•Buddy reading with the one and only Roxy