|| 3.5 stars ||
This is a very hot and surprisingly sweet monster romance.
Going into the details of this story would kind of ruin it if you want to read this, so I'm not going to do that.
All you need to know is that the book begins with a confused, inarticulate, lonely and imprisoned monster who is suddenly joined in his cell by a lovely, beautiful little human. The monster is immediately protective of him, and feels a lot of affection for him.
Which follows afterwards is not only a development of the relationship between these two, but also of the monster's psyche, memories, feelings and power. We truly see the monster grow into himself throughout the story.
However, I do wish the relationship would have had a little more depth. That was definitely missing for me, and could have quite easily been rectified since the chemistry and dynamic between them was really good.
About halfway through, a lot suddenly starts to happen, and the focus goes from a bit more centred around the monster and his feelings to more magical and paranormal stuff.
I definitely preferred the first half, but I could see a lot of people enjoying the second half as well.
This novella really has a bit of an actual plot instead of only smut, which might not be what some people would expect going into it.
There is hardly any dialogue in this novella, so if you hate inner monologues, you'll probably despise this.
In my opinion though, the lack of dialogue really worked here, and I thought it was very interesting to see how the monster was constantly obsessing over his "pretty little thing", but also how his way of thinking drastically changed over time.
I would definitely recommend this to people who are into stories featuring love between different species, fated-mates, and an overly protective and caring love interest who would do anything for the one he loves.
It also has a bit of non-consent, but it's a bit more complicated than that, since intentions are unclear between the two.
Overall I thought this was a very sexy, interesting and cute read.