I won't rate because I DNF at 5%. But I have something I have to get off my chest. It's just bad luck that this book was the last straw for me when dealing with ridiculous portayal of courage for female main characters (fmcs).
I know we -as readers- tend to be particularly difficultt with fmcs. It makes it challenging for authors to write fmcs readers will want to read about.
But for me, the worst is when I get the impression the author is trying to write a strong and courageous fmc but it feels like her "couage" has no foundation and ends up just seeming ridiculous, immature and just plain stupid.
This happens often, so it's not that this book was particularly worse than any other -again, I only read 5%- but when I read the now all too familiar scene where the fmc acts feerless when facing a dangerous situation, I rolled my eyes and didn't have it in me to go on.
In fact, this happens so often in the books I read, I have no clue if I'm the only one who gets annoyed by it.
But to me, if an fmc desides to talk back to a truly dangerous man, I think she is either an idiot, has a death wish, secretly knows mma or has lived a very sheltered life where the worst villain is the grumpy Carebear.
In this particular book, the scene comes right after a scene where we meet the mmc for the first time. The scene serves to show the readers that he is obsessed with the fmc and is ruthless in his criminal dealings. We see him order the execution of a woman who he had just finished roughly deepthroating her while discussing drug dealings and ordering the execution of another member.
So as a reader we understand he is more than morally grey. This doesn't bother me as I actually like real dark romance. And by crossing a line that many books don't cross (often even dark romance will have mmcs not willing to kill women and children but here we see it is not the case. The woman did nothing wrong aside from complaining about him pushing her head during her bj. Since she knows too much, she can't be let go so she is killed.)
As a reader I understand this man is dangerous and should be feared.
Then comes the 25 year old fmc still living with her parents, going to school and sad she can't keep a boyfriend more than a couple of weeks (we guess fairly quickly this is the mmc's doing).
When the mmc's right hand man asks tells her the mmc wants a word, she acts annoyed and pissed off because she had already told the mmc (who also happens to be her brother) she wanted nothing to do with him.
This just annoyed me.
Either the author's setup of the mmc was off or the fmc is a spoiled idiot who doesn't understand the risk.