“When I catch you, pretty boy, I’m going to make you regret running.”

2.5 stars

“You can have me, baby, any way you want. You want me on my front⁠—”
“Uh-uh, on your back, rich boy. I want to see your pretty face when I take what’s mine.”

There’s nothing actually wrong with this book, so take this how you will, you may love it, I just didn’t.

Insta hate followed by insta love, that’s a first.

Usually, there’s some past about why they hate each other, history to explain it, but nope. I don’t understand why Alek hated Evan. They’d never spoken or met or literally anything, didn’t even know his name, just saw him walking by one day and had this huge hatred for him?? That was a huge issue for me and since that was a main plot point, it kinda ruined it from the start. The second thing was the immediate “I love him, would do anything for him” even tho they didn’t like each other. Like, calm down, you've known each other for like a week and now you're all like, I’d kill for you. What?? I feel like it was rushed to get to where they started seeing each other, even tho that lasted for a day. If there’s no story-building, character-building, or whatever, it just means nothing.

I feel like the description of the book didn’t hint at this mystery thriller aspect (I know it says dead students in the synopsis, but for some reason that didn't click with me, so this could just be a me issue) and I didn’t like it. I’m not a fan of those types of books, especially if I’m not liking the other aspects of the book.

I didn’t feel any chemistry between Alek and Evan, no emotion or building of tension or anything which was my final issue between them. They were awful to each other - I mean, Evan tried to out Alex at a party, he was a huge dick about Alex not wanting to come out one second after he realized he may not be straight.

I won’t talk about the mystery side since I just didn’t like it or the way it wrapped up.

Thank you to Wordsmith Publicity and the author for an ARC!