🧇ARC Review🧇
I really enjoyed this book, and loved the story of these two imperfect and traumatized souls finding each other and growing together!
Sanne is quite the prickly one, like Liz from Ice planet Barbarians, but grumpier. She is very academically driven, focused on her studies and work. She is quite the grump; prickly and ridged, some times slightly abrasive, and very slow to trust. I had a crazy ride with her character, loved her, understood her, and disliked her at times, but the experience ended up being extremely rewarding. In the end I ended up really relating to her in a lot of ways! She is imperfect and messy, with her own struggles and past, but she does grow and soften slightly, without changing entirely. If you love a more “rough around the edges” FMC, then I think you’ll really like Sanne!
Oh Five, this poor male! What an absolute sweetheart. As an escaped former sex slave, Five had a difficult life to say the least. I felt so hard for him- the contrast of his vulnerability to Sanne’s fear of vulnerability made for a very compelling read. Something I really appreciated was as Five finds some normalcy in his new life, he does have some trauma responses that come up, which as someone with cPTSD I really appreciated the realness of that. Russo also handles the subject of his enslavement in a delicate way, giving us a general understanding of his slavery without going into too much intricate detail. Five is such a kind and respectful alien, and I LOVED that he was gargoyle-like.👀😏
God I LOVED that ending too, it was so perfect and sweet. I love that they formed such an unbreakable partnership in the end.
Alien-ness: 👽👽👽🔘🔘(3 rings, Yellow head. Purple c*m!)
MCs together: 🫂🫂🫂🔘🔘(They meet around 35% in.)
Burn: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘(First sexual encounter around 60%)
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🔘🔘(Two spicy scenes plus one in epilogue.)
Sweetness: 🧁🧁🔘🔘🔘(Five turns out to be such a sweet heart 🥹.)
Humor: 🤣🤣🤣🔘🔘(Some humorous moments and lines for sure!)
Angst: 😈😈😈🔘🔘(Definitely some angst from both characters.)
Action: 💥💥🔘🔘(Some action and tense moments, especially in Five’s escape and arrival.)