3.5 Pyromaniac and Kleptomanic Stars ⭐
Spicy Level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️.5/5

There is just something about Avina St. Graves that has the skill, expertise and talent to write two deliciously, dangerously deranged and unhinged characters and make you root for them.

This is a dual POV that follows Kohen and Blaze. Blaze has been tormented by Kohen since she was a little girl, but he is one of the few who know that even though she goes to a prestigious private school, she has no money and her house is one step away from being condemned. After being super jealous of Blaze hooking up with another guy, he sets her house on fire. So she does the only thing she can... she retaliates by going to his house and completely and utterly destroying everything with the baseball bat. After being caught instead of being sent to jail, she is sent to a reform school to continue out the last of her senior year. Soon however Kohen is sent to the same school, and guess who is allocated to be his buddy...

This book is not what you're going to expect. And if you're looking for another death obsession, you won't find it within these pages. It is closer to the "vibes" of Skin of a Sinner. The only difference is instead of there being only one unhinged character, we have two.

Blaze is the literal epitome of her name. She is stubborn, feisty, fiery, a firecracker and boy is she quick to anger. If that is not clear, she has a very short fuse and trust me when I say you do not want to be on the receiving end, because she will get physical and violent and might just bash your brains out with the baseball bat. I also felt sorry for her. She has a very tragic back story and she has a lot of awful things happen to her both on and off page. It broke my heart to see a character go through such traumatic experiences and how they shaped her explosive personality. You can almost not hold it against her that she is so rebellious and destructive to herself, as she has never had the support she needed. She is addicted to drugs and alcohol and battles that addiction throughout the book as they numb her thoughts and feelings while she deals with a society that has rejected her.

Kohen is kind of stuck in that "six-year-old" mentality where he believes that if you are mean to a girl, it shows her you like her. So if you pull her hair, cut her hair and set her hair on fire- she will fall madly in love with you. He is obsessed with Blaze and will do anything to have her.

The relationship between Kohen and Blaze is very unhealthy. Like if you think you're going to find a healthy relationship in a dark romance - what rock are you living under? Anyway... They are terrible for each other because they promote each other's "crazy" and cause it to escalate into the realm of morally grey. They are almost a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde or akin to the characters from Natural Born Killers.

One interesting observation I made is that none of the adults in this book are good. They are awful, vile people who do sickening things and have sickening actions. They have no love or compassion for anybody and idolise money. There is only one decent character, an old lady who owns a motel, and she happens to have a shotgun under her counter. I think it was a fantastic commentary on how society and the rich are filled with despicable people who wouldn't help even if you were their granddaughter.

And so, no matter how unhinged these two are, you still can't help but root for them to succeed in their hair-brained scenes. You want them to have their HEA and I commend Avina for being able to achieve this. You know no one will get them out of this but each other.

The best thing about this book is that it might have unlocked a new kink - CONGRATULATIONS! I don't think I will ever be able to take my blood pressure again without blushing. It was one of the sexiest scenes I have read in a long time and made my toes curl.

Now...what didn't work for me is that I battled to decide if this was an entire book based on characterisation or if it was based on plot because I didn't find the plot or a whole lot of growth in "characterisation". There is the plot of the two of them coming together, but you already know what's going to happen...because duh, this is a romance (even if it is an unhinged romance between two psychotic characters who need therapy and probably should be behind bars). But besides that, it felt that the plot was almost too conveniently pushed on the characters, and there wasn't much development of that overarching plot right from the start. It feels like the plot is something that was made up in the middle. Once they had gotten together, it felt disconnected.

I also really battled with seeing these two "grow" because growth implies improvement. These two do not grow, the relationship is destructive and they end up spiralling down and becoming worse. Crossing moral boundaries and blurring the lines of what is lawful and allowed. So there is this strange type of duality where the plot is weak, and the characterisation is reversed.

The tropes in this are:
▶ Dual POV
▶ Obsessive and Possessive MMC
▶ Childhood Crush
▶ Questionable use of medical equipment (YES IT IS SEXY)
▶ Unhinged MC's
▶ Pyromanic X Kleptomaniac
▶ Enemies to Lovers
▶ Banter
▶ Will burn the world for her

Overall, if you want something dark and unhinged that is sexy this is for you. It's entertaining and like a trainwreck or car crash you can't help but stare while gobbling it down like popcorn. Popcorn you can't stuff in your mouth as fast as possible.

Thank you to Avina St. Graves for my gifted ARC copy!
All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

Holy fucking shit I love this
Avina is a freaking goddess wow

I received this as an arc but I have to DNF it 🙂 I’m on chapter 19, like 60-ish %, and I cannot for the life of me want to keep reading 🫠