Definitely my favorite in the series! I loved the tropes — fake dating, age gap, he falls first/he falls harder. Bailey is my new favorite romance protagonist, she was so funny from start to finish! I related to Bailey on a spiritual level. We’re both virgins who are hilarious but only because we don’t know how to keep our mouths shut and keep our thoughts to ourselves. Beau was so dreamy! I liked that he had an edge to him, but he was always clear (in his perspective, at least) about how much he liked Bailey from the beginning. I loved the age gap between Beau and Bailey. I liked the dynamic between Bailey and Beau, where Bailey had never had someone to protect her before and Beau protected her from the very beginning. 

 

This was the shortest book in the series and I could definitely tell. There were some moments that I would have really liked to see that we never got: 

 While I was initially really excited about where I thought the plot was going, I was disappointed with what this book turned out to be. I came in expecting a story about an unhinged man-hating woman doing unhinged things in order to feel empowered (and I was here for that premise). I wanted the author to go full “Gone Girl” with the plot, and for a while, it looked like that was going to happen. I really enjoyed the middle of the book because April was giving completely unhinged vibes. I liked the character of Gretel and all that she represented. I liked how it slowly dawned on April that Gretel wasn’t her idea of a perfect woman, Gretel was her idea of herself if nothing traumatic had happened to her. 

 

I was really disappointed by the ending. As soon as April fell in love with Joshua the story stopped feeling empowering and started feeling depressing. The fact that April hated men was such a central part of her personality, and it made sense because it was directly informed by her past trauma. To have her decide to just ignore that part of her trauma response so that she could date a mediocre man felt underwhelming. The plot went from “all men are bad and women shouldn’t have to put up with their bad behavior” to “all men are bad but some men aren’t that bad so we should just settle for the least-bad ones and stop complaining” which isn’t really a feminist take. 

 

Also, reminder to myself to stop reading books set in England, because I inevitably get annoyed by the Bristish-ness of the writing. 

Too many characters and too much exposition

Not my favorite installment of the Chestnut Spring series. All of the other books had something that made them special: "Flawless" had an interesting plot, "Heartless" had an endearing couple (Cade and Willa), and "Powerless" had really good smut. "Reckless" just doesn’t have anything that makes it special, so I really can’t rate it any higher. It ended up being a pretty boring read. Plus, the accidental pregnancy trope has never been my favorite. 

Winter had some interesting character growth, but not enough to make me really root for her. Controversial opinion, but Theo was very bland and had almost no personality other than being in love-at-first-sight with Winter.

Although this was a really interesting book to read, it's an incredibly difficult book to review. On one hand, it took a lot of courage for Jill Duggar to bring her story to light. This is a powerful story about abuse masking through religion. Watching Jill gain her independence after years of being controlled and manipulated was very empowering. 

On the other hand, because this is Jill Duggar's story, there are parts of this story that do not sit right with me. The complete glossing over of Derick Duggar's transphobic remarks is the most egregious to me, particularly because this is how it is addressed within the text: "Derick had been making comments on Twitter, speaking his mind about various topics and making a few enemies." 

I'm also unsettled by Jill's refusal to place blame on her parents for how they handled the original incident with Josh Duggar. While I understand that this is Jill's story and that Jill does not blame them, it is very difficult for me to see this from her perspective, considering that the coverup of that incident seemed to directly enable Josh Duggar to commit further acts of violence.

I ended up giving this book four stars. Although there are aspects of the narrative that I felt were glossed over, in the end, this memoir set out to tell Jill's story and it accomplished that in a remarkable way.

I really liked the character of Pepper. Her character flaw - pushing people away to avoid them abandoning her like her birth mother did - felt very real because it was grounded in her past experiences. I thought that her obsession with alternate universes was an interesting vehicle for character growth - she went from constantly imagining a better universe for herself (and for her husband, Ike) to finally feeling content in her own universe. I like the dynamic between Pepper and Ike - I thought that it was cute how they constantly shared fun and interesting facts with each other.

The character of Ula was an interesting commentary on neglectful and narcissistic parents. The fact that she ruined the lives of so many of her alternate selves just because she was lonely (a consequence of her inability to compromise with her sister). The fact that she never cared about the consequences of her talent, never realizing that just because she could do something doesn't mean that she should. The fact that she claimed that everything she did was for Pepper when she never did a single thing for her daughter - everything she ever did was for herself. It all added up to create a character that was so deeply flawed and so intensely unlikeable. 

Overall I really liked this book, but I ended up taking some points off of my rating because the plot took SO LONG to get to the parts that I found interesting. Plus, for so much of the book, Pepper was spending time one-on-one with Scott, and yet they never developed a relationship. This is odd because being unable to develop healthy relationships was a part of Pepper's character flaw. I would have expected her forming a friendship with Scott to be a part of her character growth. Scott as a character was never really wrapped up, either. 

Lore Olympus is very entertaining if you turn your critical thinking skills off and just focus on the pretty colors. It’s kind of like Cocomellon for romance readers. 

The Minthe/Persephone showdown was SO ENTERTAINING! Minthe finally got what she deserves for every single mean thing that she’s ever said to Hades. 

THE PLOT HAS STARTED PLOTTING! Evil Queen Persephone is MY flavor!

Ares is my new favorite character! I literally love him so much! He and Persephone have such fun banter and I LOVE how he eggs her on and encourages her to enter her villain era!