Reviews

Content Warnings: sexual content, violence, blood, gore, death, torture, physical abuse, emotional abuse, PTSD, fire injury, loss of body autonomy,
Mention of: child abuse, toxic relationships, abandonment, blackmail,

Okay, at about halfway through this book...I started liking the Kings. I still hate them for who they were...and feel like I needed to see more of how they got from point A [enormous misogynistic assholes] to point B [men who blush and go out of their way to show their feelings to Aran]. The twins will always be the superior men in her life...I'm sorry...it's just the truth. 😤

I'm really hoping we get a

Jinx

spinoff....I mean really I would love so many spin offs haha

Content Warnings

offmyredcarpet's review

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3.5

Come for the biting sarcasm and deadpan humor, stay for the toxic love interests suffering the consequences from the folly of their inherent bias.

What I enjoy about the Cruel Shifterverse series are the keen observations of human nature delivered in a way that is endlessly entertaining while coasting on vibes. And for the most part that’s what we got, until we didn’t. I liked Aran’s story *more* than Sadie’s (Psycho Shifters 1-3), but the writing is not as tight and cohesive. Instead we end up with three books that are unnecessarily long with missed opportunities for character growth for the MMCs.

Midway through every MMC starts behaving in ways counter to established precedent. There’s so much that feels forced. We’re here for the toxic devil trio to finally experience growth but instead we get a plot device used to completely leap past growth and go straight to “we’re just sad marshmallow bois who want their fated and our fee-fees are hurt that you don’t want us after we spent two books being cruel to you but also you chose the twins—who make every effort to show how much they cherish you—over us how very dare you”. There was so much potential here and it’s squandered for a lazy humor grab that doesn’t fit the narrative.

By the last few chapters I honestly was wondering if the author experienced a lack of sleep completing it. And then her thank you reveals she and her mother spent “four consecutive all nighters…so we could release this on time”. That tracks. Also, called it. It’s better to move your pub date forward than deliver subpar work to readers who know you’re capable of more.

Even with all that’s disappointing about it, I still had a good time reading it. There was much I liked about it:

1) hating the devil trio at first but they become comically endearing

2) showing us everyone’s trauma and not just the FMC’s

3) her mates being a mix of fated and chosen

4) the perseverance of everyone but especially the FMC