This was transcendent and I regret nothing (as the king said).
It took less than a page between the time when I thought “oh, it’s a Jane eyre moment” and Arden starting mentioned Jane Eyre and, honestly, that is my everything. I love how referential this book is. I love how embedded within popular culture and literature this book is. It feels like an Easter egg half the time.
I love how much I just yelled at the main characters because their decisions made sense and trauma and emotions are real and also “don’t you all see you’re perfect for each other!”
There is, as they say, a lot to unpack when it comes to the beauty and the beast model of the romance novel. Both the model of one person as beast not only in the sense of power/frightening but also in the sense of cursed/needs-saving and how that plays out. And it’s a dangerous fantasy, like all fantasies when they enter reality. What fascinates me is the tools authors use to communicate “this one is safe” and “this one won’t actually hurt you”. Which requires attention and, in some ways, the BDSM frame of this book invites that conversation - you share safe because...boundaries, because reliability, because consent. But also the way that the curse that is the hallmark of beauty and the beast manifests instead as trauma. That’s messy. And this is fantasy.
Anyway, I feel validated in my choices not to read the second book in this series until I could reach it and this last one back to back.