Generally good! Lots of repitition and some weird pacing, but still good!

I made it 17% in- it's so long for NO REASON. we don't need this. This doesn't need to be 600-700 pages

Aye yo this stuff WACK. straight up TWISTY TURNEY

 

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. 

All in all fun; I'll come back with more complete thoughts later

I have many thoughts about this book so I will probably let them stew over time and then write them out in full. But what I will say right now:

- Pestilence is a man-baby who needs to be taught by a 20 year old woman about emotions even though he has apparently walked among humans for eons (unless that was like, metaphorical or some shit, but even then you should have an IDEA)
- Sara can't decide if she's gonna be a strong badass backtalker or if she wants to swoon for Pestilence because he's pretty. She keeps going "ooh, I'm so mad at him!!" and then swooning over his blue eyes
- Trixie was the only great character who was a badass bitch (even though it's a male horse, I am giving him that title)
- Uhh yeah. of course humans are gonna be mad at you, pestilence. why can't you wrap your brain around the fact that people don't like that you're here to do (looks at list) genocide? even if it's your "purpose". god dang it my guy

The writing was genuinely good. the concept is interesting. I just wish we had more substance or more development, or something. Maybe I'm just jaded, or I'm tired of "million year old man and teenage female who must teach him feelings" or some shit. I like Gods and retellings and mortal x immortal romances but this didn't really... do it well. 

OK so now that my coffee has hit I can communicate my emotions about this book:
This felt exactly like something I would have written during high school and thought this was pure art. It was poetic and overly flowery, there was a stunning lack of communication between characters, and there was some motive for character's actions, but not a ton. I'm trying to keep this spoiler free so I on't go too into that last bit but the book is super short. 
On that exact note, this book clocks in at under 300 pages. Half of it was all flowery words and repetition and metaphors and the rest was something resembling a story. For example, instead of saying something like "I was scared", it would have said "my heart trembled like a frightened little dove ready to fly away", but it did that every time. It feels like the author tried to push a story that ran on emotions alone. 
Grace, our main character, is just a little dumb. I'll keep it spoiler free, but everything is going great and then she does one little bitty thing that goes against everything she was talking about for the previous 150 pages and she brings it all it shit. I wish I could divulge it all here but that would spoil it and, thus, this would not be a spoiler free review. Sigh.
Anyway, if you like poetic and flowery books with no point that will make you feel smart, you'll enjoy this. I don't so I did not. Not the worst book I have ever written but I wouldn't consider rereading it so... 1.5 stars.

I know that psychology is a very deep topic and it's hard to cover so much in <200 pages. Overall this book did a good job, but I wish it had placed focus on other things. Overall, a great intro and refresher for folks interested in psychology- it just requires additional reading.

I won't review because it's informational/a how to guide, but now I feel ready to face the end of the world lol. Informative, fun, and a quick read.