littleredmacks's Reviews (528)

I loved every second of this book. 

No. No. No. No. No. No. 
I had heard things about this book before reading it, but I had the illumicrate version and wanted to give it a chance. I was so hoping that the romance would be more like stockholm syndrome than anything else, but boy was I wrong. This is a colonizer romance through and through, among many other issues with this book. I should have never given it a chance. On the bright side, we really got to work those annotation skills on this one. 

This book was something that I really needed as someone who is still healing from religious trauma. While the romance felt a little codependent, I struggle to think that a realationship developed under those circumstances wouldn't be. It also impressed me how quickly the main character was able to turn her back on the things she'd been indoctrinated into, especially because, for many of us, it takes much longer. 

Colorful descriptions in a powerful story. I really enjoyed how the two narratives were intertwined. This is a book I want to reread again at some point. 

I expected this to be better. It felt a lot like pop phycology and not something that will help you sustain habits throughout the years, especially if you are neurodivergent. There were helpful tips but they could have been summed up in a couple paragraphs, a whole book wasn't needed. 

This was a really insightful book. Being a cheerleader and dancer growing up, and coaching gymnastics as I got older, I was well aware of the challenges in those sports that women face in terms of their bodies, but I never considered that it could extend to other sports, like running. 

The story itself was such a cute idea but the main character was extremely mean to everyone and that was sometimes hard to bear. 

This books started rocky and consistently got worse. 

1. Aidan has no boundaries and literally gets her to agree to a date by refusing to physically let go of her until she said yes. He is the definition of a red flag. He harasses her through text even though they met for all of 5 minutes. His whole plan to date her was based on a dare that he couldn't say no to and he planned to 'wear her down'. No. Let's take no for an answer, yeah? He also makes extremely sexist comments throughout the book. (Also he snatches her phone out of her hand at one point because she didn't want to share a funny message a friend had sent before they had even agreed to go on a date together). 

2. He calls her bunny because his buddies joked about her being a 'puck bunny'. I don't have enough words for how disgusting that is. 

3. There was literally part of the book that said "He couldn't be held responsible for his baser instincts". Excuse me? No. Ew. 

4. The anxiety disorder seems to be something that is just there to help move the plot forward and allow the characters to trauma bond, especially considering the fact that the anxiety just seems to disappear randomly for extended periods of time. Also she seems to have unlimited access to her therapist and calls her on a whim almost entirely. How is that professional or okay? 

5. The prison rape joke was in extremely poor taste. Not sure how that made it to being published. 

6. The FMC's personality changes on a literal whim and has no consistency. She also got mad at the MMC when he refused to sleep with her because she was drunk. Like, no, that was one of the few good things he did almost the entire book. 

7. I thought we had all agreed that describing POC skin color using food was in poor taste so I'm not sure why the black woman is described as having skin like a cup of coffee. 

8. The FMC's older brother is also a walking red flag who needs to learn what boundaries are. 

9. We get very little of the MMC's mom but she was giving 'boy mom' vibes so hard. I was cringing the entire time. 

10. She had these great friends at the beginning of the book, and then got together with the MMC and the friends disappeared? 

I had hopes because I'd seen people talking about how this was a cute fall romance and I needed some fall vibes in my life. 

This is a book that I will need to read a physical copy of because there are too many people to keep track of on audio.