The prose itself wasn’t half bad, but I found Hayes’ instant attraction rather irritating. And it was completely absurd that

he just immediately told Saiorse anything she asked about with barely even a trace of resistance after knowing her all of five seconds. That and how he just kept promoting her rank within the 2-3 weeks he even knew her leading up to his birthday.

Also I understand the appeal of morally gray characters and grasped why Saiorse would see herself as a monster, but my lord, her constant inner turmoil about it was SO REPETITIVE!!! It felt like every other chapter involved her calling herself a monster.

I was pleasantly surprised when her dad called her out on it and said she needed to stop using that label as a copout when she was doing heinous things.

It also really grossed me out that Saiorse was supposed to be seducing older men when she’s only 17. Like she doesn’t sleep with any of them, but the concept of a teen luring men in is so repulsive even if it’s actually saying something about the men that they’d be attracted to a teen in the first place. It was mentioned that lots of them groped her before she ever sang to them to entrance them, which is sadly realistic, but it really wouldn’t have changed anything materially to age Saiorse up by like 4-5 years to make her young enough to still be exploring her power yet not so young that her role of having to seduce men is creepy.