book 2
Better than book one, but I feel like this isn’t well fleshed out, there just feels like a bunch of plot-holes. Spoilers
I don’t understand how the Fmc is now all powerful has these abilities to get rid of the darkness and does not do anything to Wes, like briefly tries at the end, but also- doesn’t push it? If the twins were so close and inseparable how does Donovan not realize that something is super not right and want to delve to the bottom of it? Wes can legit not remember a whole segment of time and his twin brother is letting him take a moment (days or weeks worth)- it just doesn’t seem like that action would jive with his personality- even cosmo sees it, (that something isn’t right)- and if in the beginning when Theo met the twins and it was basically love at first sight- why wouldn’t anyone question why Wes didn’t feel that “love at first sight”- like they did before? The author didn’t give the readers any background or flashbacks of how the twins and Theo first started- sure there were small snippets but nothing that showed a relationship blossoming and giving credibility to the way Theo acts. It would have been more helpful to show what the initial start of their relationship looked like- including Cosmo and how it affected their relationship. It feels like a big miss. Speaking of Cosmo, how has he not asked Theo to take his dark mark off? It is legit controlling him and hindering his life- why would he not get that taken care of??! When writing a RH from different point of views I feel like making sure everyone gets equal- “point of view time” is imperative- I still feel like I don’t have any connection to most of these male leads or even care about majority of them, and then they add another guy (max), there’s not enough info to feel invested in their storyline, which is a huge problem with large harems when not written well.
This gripe is a me problem, and being nit-picky.
From a formatting perspective I really don’t like that there is no table of contents, not being able to go back to certain chapters trying to reference back, was annoying and frustrating. I still stand by my original statement from book 1, the pictures of each character as a pov reference/chapter start did zero favors- it made me less interested in learning about them- Ludo looks like a creepy middle aged man- like the guy who played Lucius Malfoy and Legolas had a middle aged son who is 40s, but greasy, and lanky. His title is “Ludo the janitor”. Nothing about that sounds sexy, that’s like Ludo the garbage man, Ludo the toilet cleaner, Ludo the creep- I feel like at any moment he’s going to ask you if he should use “his strong hand”. Zero sex appeal. I mean at this point, call him the groundskeeper- that at least could be made to sound sexy? The artwork, is talented on its own, but applying it to the characters just brought the book down, and maybe it’s because they don’t look appealing to me. I would have rather come up with my own mental images at what they look like. Donovan looks like Bob Ross and a lumberjack had a baby and he’s in his early 30s ready to star as the hero in a Christmas holiday hallmark movie. Alexis looks like Rami Malek and Prince had a middle aged baby. And Max looks like a dark haired child of Gary Busey. The only normal-ish age appropriate looking characters are Theo (who I have to remind myself is the female lead because her name is also the common nickname for Theodore) and Cosmo. Idk this book has so much potential, but I just have a hard time feeling invested in these characters.