One star because Amazon won’t let me give something less than that. Plus it was bad but not unreadable.

 

Good-NESS. Before I start I must say, I love romance and am sometimes an enjoyer of the darker side of the romance genre. However, I believe that TikTok has forever ruined the genre and cheapened the work that it takes to write a good book- indie, self published, traditional, whatever. Folks just see the #BookTok tag and get massive dollar signs in their eyes. Ya know, like one of them cartoons. 

 

However, I like when I like a main character. I need to root for the love interest. Even if he’s dark and flawed, there HAS to be something there containing some substance. Sol is about as nutritious as a can of soup: not at all and will likely give me heartburn. Homeboy was out here angsting over a college aged girl while everyone was telling him to get therapy. He sexually assaulted Scarlett while she was on her meds, debating taking out her birth control (ew ew ew), and was all around unlikeable. However the author decided that Rand/Raoul is worse because Rand does everything Sol does, but he ALSO engages in human trafficking. But like… that doesn’t make Sol any more likable. (Side note: Where is a Phantom Retelling where Raoul is NOT done dirty???) It feels cheap to be like “hm yes, root for this dark angsty guy who does all these dark things, but ALSO is abusive towards the love interest!” I get that dark romance has dark elements, but there is also “romance” in that title. Homeboy let a student get raped by a teacher because “what if she was enjoying it”, and only stepped in when the teacher told Christine that she sucks. 

 

The music was next to none. It was like, a couple scenes where there’s singing, and cringey sex metaphors around music (if I see the word “crescendo” one more time I will wrap myself up like a mummy and preserve myself in my tears). 

 

Also… the tags? For the book? What does “dubious consent branding” mean? Have y’all ever worked a branding iron? That stuff takes a LONG time to warm up. That’s not really dubious consent because it just takes so long to warm up, you gotta check it, etc etc. And the Phantom being like “I’ll rip out your birth control implant” is INCREDIBLY unsexy. You can have hot dark characters without them being walking red flags. Unhinged? Great! Needs to get the cops called on em for rapey behavior? Not great! 

 

TikTok has also made people think they can write. I don’t hate sex scenes in books- it comes with the romance territory, in fact, so I forgive a lot of stuff. But the line “my c!it fluttered against his abs”(???) actually made me debate divorcing my husband and fleeing to the mountains to live in solitude a la Yoda. Goodbye, my dignity. 

 

There’s great dark and intense romances with masked men. I LOVE masked men. (Note: leave recommendations pls I am thirsty) And there’s great dark romances, period. It’s just becoming oversaturated with folks who see 3 TikTok videos with tropes and write books AROUND tropes, and not put tropes in their story. Fuck Sol (Scarlett sure is), and Greer Rivers needs to take at least 2 writing classes. Like what you like. But go read something better. 

 

Still better than Haunting Adeline, though.