I liked this book, but it did take a minute for me to get into the story. As someone who experienced high school in the 90s, I liked that there were a lot of nostalgic details that were sprinkled in to help set the scene. It was almost like Cruel Intentions set in Arkansas.
I enjoy a good bully romance and dark romance, but this one stayed pretty light overall. Don't get me wrong, there are non-con/dub-con scenes that would feel right at home in a darker story, but the overall tone didn't feel that dark to me. It also almost felt like we jumped into the middle of the story at times. The MMC is morally grey, and sort of a bully, but virtually all of the bullying happened off page before the story even began. That made it hard to build tension based on the group dynamics at the school. It was also confusing for the FMC to say she and the other "nerds" had been bullied by all of the jocks, including her brother, as her brother's over protectiveness towards her is a man plot point. I kept hoping we'd get some sort of flashback to fill in the gaps, but it never came.
It felt like this book was trying to do a lot, but not enough simultaneously at some points. We jumped from light teasing, to what basically amounts to SA in public and it didn't really feel organic to the characters at that point to me. There were some hot spicy scenes I enjoyed, and the dynamics between Sebastian and Vivienne started to get some depth to them, I was pulled into the story more. This book is set in the same universe as several others from the author's backlist, but this is described as a standalone. I wonder if having read more in the "Faulknerverse" previously would have made this story better to me? I enjoyed it, but some parts felt like missed opportunities.

Thank you to Booksprout and Selena for the ARC opportunity.