Cristie > Recent Status Updates

I rarely step away from a book, but I had to put this down. Maybe it's just me that I got annoyed by how frivolous and ill conceived a lot of the characters actions seem to be. I know this is supposed to be a fun, cheeky, "get back at the haters" book, but there needs to be some meat on the bones, too.

The theme of this series in a nutshell:

"We were woefully unprepared and almost certainly outmatched. The battle we’d come to fight had gone from a risk to a folly. But I couldn’t walk away now."

Over and over again she just jumps into things half-cocked and you'd think she'd learn, but no. 🫤

Aaand now I'm annoyed. The main character keeps making the same dumb choice over and over and now she's bringing a non-com with her. How is this going to end well?

Slither or sliver, admission or omission... They're basically the same, right?

There's been some really clumsy foreshadowing and it seems the main characters have gone stupid for this entire book. I've skimmed so much I may not read the next one.

In reading this series, I can't tell if the main character is stupid or if the author assumes readers won't be able to make the inferences.

The meat to condiments ratio in this story sandwich is seriously skewed in the wrong direction. 😐

Fucks sake. Get off the cross, girl. Somebody needs the wood.

FMC is so pathetic right now.

Just fluffing once I'd like to see an FMC not be a total moron. MMC gets snatched, what does she do? Keeps it to herself and tries to figure out how to get to the meetup, alone, knowing that she is the valuable target that they want. Not leverage the backup she already has and plan a rescue, but takes it upon herself despite barely knowing her ass from a hole in the ground about her own abilities. Makes sense.

😳 Ho Lee Shit. This whole book uses single quotation marks rather than double to denote direct speech/dialogue:

‘Don’t you fucking dare, Cyrus.’
‘Now, now, Princess. You know the deal.’
‘I worked hard for this. I’m not handing it over to you.’

🤯 You'd think it wouldn't matter. You'd be wrong. It's so distracting.

Am I the only one who is fully over how this FMC acts?

“I understand your point, but if things take a turn for the worse with the war, would you consider using it to make sure we don’t die?” Wren flinched into Thorn at my mention of death.

🙄

I don't know if I'm just less tolerant of played-out tropes lately, but I've found a lot of the personal interplay and dialogue to be annoying so far. And tedious.

I am both fascinated and bored at once. Incredibly imagined world, story is dry AF. Plodding along at a glacial pace.

What have I done? This book is so stupid.

Written in first person, present tense but past tense is thrown in there in odd, inappropriate places. This book is desperate for an edit.

This book is... rough. I'm really trying to give it a fair shake because not many men write reverse harem, but damn. I'm struggling to articulate exactly what the issue is here and the word I keep coming back to is rough. Discordant. Lacking in flow. A certain lack of understanding of female motivations. Which makes sense, I suppose.

It also reads like a first work, which is fine, everyone starts somewhere.

Despite the fairly regular lapses into obsessive details, this story has a lot more meat on the bone than previous publications.

So. much. talky-talky. I have commented before that the pacing of L.H.'s books get bogged down in the minutiae and this one is no exception. We're at 31% and haven't even managed to move from the gym to a bedroom. Every other scene Anita is triggered or faces some kind of therapy session point and the thriller/cop/even the supernatural aspects of the storyline just get watered down in all the Dr. Phil.

If this female doesn't grow a pair soon, I'm gonna start rooting for the bad guy.

This plot is so interesting but the writing... Repetitive sentence structure and stiff dialogue. I'm struggling to finish despite being interested in the plot.

I DNF'd another book by this author because of the awful FMC, but wanted to give her another try. I dunno, ya'll. This one seems to be a vapid and obnoxious fluff, as well.

[“What do you want?” I snap at him, thoroughly pissed off that firstly, he came to my room, and secondly, that he came to find me instead of waiting for me to find him.]

I have now see goddamn everything. Just read a review that two-starred a series box set for having a virus/pandemic plot theme and criticized it for being insensitive, while noting that it was originally published individually between 2017-2019 - pre-pandemic...

It was made very clear what the main theme of the series was, so why read it if you find distasteful? Why rate poorly based on your own hangups?

Well. When this thing decides to get to the point, it just reaches right around and gooses you in the ass.

I think if a person went into this book cold, without reading the jacket, they would still have no idea what the actual fuck kind of book they picked up at this point. And I think I like that about it. 🤔

I just don't know who this MC is. She's half whiny, weakling, Bella Swan and half crazy, needs-to-be-medicated psycho bitch. I like the secondary characters just fine but is just swinging between extremes in such an off-putting way.

DNF @ 53%.

See review.

DNF. I wanted to like it. Some of the colorful language was funny as hell, but it was just too corny for my tastes. Another person who likes that style of writing would probably enjoy this a lot. No star rating because I won't penalize a book for a difference of taste.

What is the purpose of shelving a book "not interested" or "won't read"?

I -really- don't understand the point she's trying to make here.

["There’s been a lot of crap that this is how Chicago does things as snowflakes and whatever other drivel, but it’s not for the rest of the country,” I explained, gesturing to my ridiculously “ghetto” clothes. We were all in bling, and the guys were wearing such baggy pants they were having trouble not laughing.]