embodyingmysticalmac's reviews
44 reviews

The writing really lacked for me in this one. I’ve read a few other shifter romances and even one by this author that I really enjoyed, but those felt like the witting was done with care  and it felt like there was editing that took place to elevate it. This book feels like a first draft. The descriptions in general as well as the smut are so cliché that I genuinely just rolled my eyes more than anything. As much as I love a well crafted book, I don’t need my smut books to be masterpieces, but I need to feel like the writer cared to go beyond their first ideas and this didn’t feel like that at all. If cliché character interactions and writing doesn’t bother you, you may like this book. Just not for me. 

Just genuinely couldn’t get myself to care. Regardless of the world surrounding them, there needs to be some sense of mutual magnetism and emotional investment between the couple for me to care about what they go through and this book just didn’t do that. 

The writing was far too YA while seemingly trying too hard to be high fantasy. Even the audiobook wasn’t able to get me to ignore the juvenile nature of the prose. This was exacerbated by the fact that the content seems to be intended for new adult fantasy. Maybe this book gets good but the writing bothered me too much for me to find out. 

The writing style was not done well enough to warrant it imo and appeared like the author was trying to be stylistic but came across as simply gimmicky. A book that does what this tried to do but actually succeeded is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I have also seen who the love interest was gonna be (thanks book tok 😅) and he is irredeemably abusive which I am just not interested in. Unless the abuse serves an actual purpose for a redemption arc it simply didn’t need to come from the love interest, even if it is necessary, then it’s up to the writer to not create a character that is genuinely irredeemable. I am over YA books encouraging young women to end up with their abusers. This series can stay far away from my romance shelf 🙅🏻‍♀️