Honestly just wasn’t really interested and kept spacing out

I was soooo excited to read this cause the synopsis is sooo intriguing…..but unfortunately the book was not. I could tell pretty early on that I probably wasn’t going to like it, but I told myself I’d read until at least page 100 before I dnfed…..I didn’t make it that far lol. It’s not that it was bad or anything, some things just really irked me and I just wasn’t invested in anything. I didn’t like how we’re expecting Arthie to be super badass and then within the first 10 pages she’s blushing over a guy who is supposed to be her enemy….absolutely no build up or tension. There’s a lot of explaining in this book. Instead of dropping a detail and letting us form our own conclusion or opinion, there’s a lot of over explaining. I decided to skip to one of the last chapters to see if it would entice me to finish it but it just confirmed that it wasnt for me :( I would definitely recommended trying it if you like the concept! Just cause it wasn’t for me doesn’t mean it wont be for you :)

Unfortunately, this was very slow moving and boring. I was interested to know what happened so I watched part of Booksandlala’s live discussion to decide if I should dnf or not, and I’m happy I did after watching the whole live. I just don’t think this would’ve gotten anything more than a 2.5 star. I have OCD and the representation was crazy accurate, to the point of being triggering lol. The flashbacks were interesting, especially the focus on Annie’s mom but it just wasn’t enough to keep me reading. 

I really like the author as an influencer, and the premise seems fun and there’s so much hype are this book. I start reading and I realize….this book is kind of stupid. Writing is very surface level and cringy, MC is annoying, she immediately starts changing her mind about her revenge plot once she meets the guy cause she’s attracted to him and then changes her mind again. This novel is marketed as feminist but from the 20% I read, the MC is the exception and every other girl is happy to live under the patriarchy and die for men. She also seems to hate every other woman she meets? Yeah, this was a huge disappointment. I decided to read some reviews to see if I should dnf or not, and what I read makes me think that this book won’t get any better for me. I’m sad cause I really like the author and was excited for the poly rep, but yeah this book definitely isn’t for me.

Side note: I knew this had disabled rep in it, and I thought it was really interesting how the MC’s disability comes from her bound feet. Great cultural touch to the book!

Unfortunately this just wasn’t for me. The book felt very inauthentic and cheesy to me, and I could tell it wasn’t going to get any more than a 2.5 star so I decided to dnf. 

I was actually really enjoying this until around 120 pages when we learn that the MC is attracted to her step brother…..I had gotten some weird vibes a few times but I thought I was being paranoid…. It seems like from some reviews that they do end up together but tbh I didn’t look too hard into to cause I’m already uncomfortable enough as it is lol either way I’m not continuing. Really disappointing cause the plot was very intriguing and the writing was great. 

I don’t have that much of an opinion on this. I like the idea of writing a book in a screenplay style, but the execution wasn’t that great and honestly wasn’t interesting at all. I read 27% digitally, and tried to switch to the audiobook after reading reviews. After listening for about 2 minutes, I realized I just didn’t care at all about finishing the book. Both the plot and characters weren’t interesting to me.

Definitely see why so many people enjoy this series, I just think I’ve aged out of it is all. I might give it another try at some point as it does have a cool premise, but for now I have books that are higher priority. I just didn’t have any desire to pick up the book, even though I was enjoying it while I was reading. I was reading it for a month and only got to 108 pages, and most of that was from the first few days.

I tried really hard to continue this book, but I think it’s just not for me. 

The story is told through a first person flow of consciousness style. Personally, I couldn’t stand it. The plot was nowhere near compelling enough to justify the constant paragraphs of continuous descriptions and commentary that never seemed to end, and honestly for the most part never even had a purpose. 

Although I definitely believe that books with struggling adult main characters are important (especially stories featuring minorities, as is the black woman starring in the book), oh my god the main character never caught a break. Constantly being humiliated and degraded, it was not only exhausting to read, but felt unbelievable.