Mimi
This is a dark one.
Originally I thought this was going to be a 3 star book at least for sure. Writing was engaging, pace was fast and smut was good - lots of body betrayal with a sprinkles of forbidden teacher/student dynamics. The female lead is a student blackmailed into a sexual arrangement with her teacher to pass her maths class and afford her rent. There is dark poly/sharing/human trafficking in this book and the female lead had chemistry and smut with multiple male characters in this, so I was hooked working out what's going to happen and who the female lead would end up with.
From 30-50% the degradation/slapping/knife play gradually got a bit too much for me, especially since the female lead was hating what was happening to her.
It also annoyed me once I realized who the male lead was, it took until 57% for her romance with him to start. Yes, there were some cute and sweet moments between them sprinkled in before that point where they were both overly friendly but the 'more than friends' moments didn't start until over the half the book in.
The book continued to go downhill with more appearances of the female lead's friends. I really disliked all of them in this book and they actually made me want to DNF 70% where we started getting their perspective as well.
The plot became really illogical as well.
If Scott is not genuinely a teacher but someone pretending to be a teacher purely to lure the female lead, why would he remain as a teacher after successfully kidnapping the female lead? It made no sense he would stick around, allowing the female lead's friends to punch/kick/torture him and loudly proclaim his crimes at his place of employment, where any of the students or teachers could overhear and report him to police. Logically he would have disappeared like Jared as soon as his kidnapping job was done. Instead, he remains as a teacher for no reason at all other than allowing the friends to murder him and obtain the female lead's whereabouts.
I also struggle to believe these ordinary high school students, with no experience doing any of this at all and no lawyer/police parents to back them up, would be able to or have the courage to so easily obtain surveillance footage, stalk Scott and ultimately murder him.
I also felt like my impression of Rick, the male lead, went downhill when he continued to have sex with Madeleine, a cheerleader, despite claiming to love April, the female lead. Initially I was quite digging the star-crossed lovers dynamics between the leads where they both had feelings with each other but couldn't be with each other and the male lead was persistent despite this. But Rick eventually became a coward.
Things in the book did improve for me with the plot twist reveal that the main villain is actually male lead's father. But I hated that the ultimate ending was male lead running away for 4 years after his father kills himself in a car crash that leaves the female lead permanently disabled. Definitely ruined the book for me.
This is a dark one.
Originally I thought this was going to be a 3 star book at least for sure. Writing was engaging, pace was fast and smut was good - lots of body betrayal with a sprinkles of forbidden teacher/student dynamics. The female lead is a student blackmailed into a sexual arrangement with her teacher to pass her maths class and afford her rent. There is dark poly/sharing/human trafficking in this book and the female lead had chemistry and smut with multiple male characters in this, so I was hooked working out what's going to happen and who the female lead would end up with.
From 30-50% the degradation/slapping/knife play gradually got a bit too much for me, especially since the female lead was hating what was happening to her.
It also annoyed me once I realized who the male lead was, it took until 57% for her romance with him to start. Yes, there were some cute and sweet moments between them sprinkled in before that point where they were both overly friendly but the 'more than friends' moments didn't start until over the half the book in.
The book continued to go downhill with more appearances of the female lead's friends. I really disliked all of them in this book and they actually made me want to DNF 70% where we started getting their perspective as well.
The plot became really illogical as well.
If Scott is not genuinely a teacher but someone pretending to be a teacher purely to lure the female lead, why would he remain as a teacher after successfully kidnapping the female lead? It made no sense he would stick around, allowing the female lead's friends to punch/kick/torture him and loudly proclaim his crimes at his place of employment, where any of the students or teachers could overhear and report him to police. Logically he would have disappeared like Jared as soon as his kidnapping job was done. Instead, he remains as a teacher for no reason at all other than allowing the friends to murder him and obtain the female lead's whereabouts.
I also struggle to believe these ordinary high school students, with no experience doing any of this at all and no lawyer/police parents to back them up, would be able to or have the courage to so easily obtain surveillance footage, stalk Scott and ultimately murder him.
I also felt like my impression of Rick, the male lead, went downhill when he continued to have sex with Madeleine, a cheerleader, despite claiming to love April, the female lead. Initially I was quite digging the star-crossed lovers dynamics between the leads where they both had feelings with each other but couldn't be with each other and the male lead was persistent despite this. But Rick eventually became a coward.
Things in the book did improve for me with the plot twist reveal that the main villain is actually male lead's father. But I hated that the ultimate ending was male lead running away for 4 years after his father kills himself in a car crash that leaves the female lead permanently disabled. Definitely ruined the book for me.