Yall.
This book is 80% porn, 10% murder and 10% plot.
I gave it a solid 1.5 out of five in my personal ratings, mostly because this book moves soooo quickly like the pacing is insane. The plot was...idk been there done I've seen it before. I don't think this is a bad book by any means even though my rating is low ( trust me there are books id given up on within the first few chapters) but it's just not my personal cup of tea. But here we goooo.
So boom we have our main girlie Wendy Michaels, everyone average rich girl whos described in the book many times as average. Sigh when is the book community gonna let go of the "Lets make her average so she stands out from all the drop-dead gorgeous model blondes and have the love interest fall in love with her so she knows she's special too!" trope. I don't hate it is just too common now it seems like every book has a 100/10 guy fall in love with a 5/10 girl, which kuddos to her ngl, i just wish wed switch it up a bit. Anyway I don't hate or like Wendy, in fact, the book moved soooo quickly I really didn't have any time to develop any sort of feelings for her at all. Her love for her brother is admirable I'll give her that but other than that I legit don't have anything good or bad to say about girliepop. I will say she should have called out her dad for spending time with that lady on her bday that pissed me off.
Next is James Barrie, our love interest of the story. Filled to the brim with PTSD and murderous cravings this man is what we call tall dark and handsome. He first saw Wendy and was like "lol smash," but things quickly turned when he realized she was the daughter of his rival, they were in the business of murder and drugs. While they never outright say this is a gang, for all intents and purposes, this is a gang. James also has this notorious nickname "Hook" and they allude to him getting the name because he used his hook to kill people, and yet for some reason he only used it once and it was on some rando who called Wendy a bitch. Like come onnnnnnnnnn. Hook is such a cool name for someone who's a villain and out of allllll the scenes we get of him harming people he only uses the hook in one. SHAME. I did like the dynamic between him and the guy who took care of hi it was typical, "I raised you and imma show gratitude loke a gruff old man." and the hook was,"I'm grateful but I refuse to show it cuz that makes me weak." and that's the most vulnerability we get out of him other than when the man died.
Now onto Wendy and James as a couple.....psyche ward, jail, prison, SOMETHING. Now to give Wendy credit I too would swoon if a sexy rich man who could get me whatever I wanted took me on a private yacht for dinner, I'm with you there. But everything that happened after RED FLAG RUN RUN RUN. First of all, AND DONT JUMP ME FOR THIS, the sex scenes were mid. To be completely honest I've read better smut here on Tumblr and on Wattpad, YALL HAVE TOO DONT LIE. And the way it was written was so weird like girl he put what WHERE. Idk the smut didn't do it for me at all. And on top of that yall had sex twice and like two days later he kidnaps you bc he thought you betrayed him bc he somehow got in his mind that you and ur daddy was plotting. MIND YOU Wendy didn't even know he knew her dad. And I understand she was mad at her dad but staying with Hook after that was insane like girl FUCK BOTH OF THEM. Take your daddy's riches and move somewhere. Not only that her dad was gonna shoot Hook, which would have taken care of one of her issues, but she shot her dad to save Hook?????? You've known this man for 3 weeks max, I get ur dad pissed you off but it's hella hypocritical to be like," Dad you sell drugs and kill people how dare you!" then dead ass marry the guy who does the same exact thing. Wendy girl, BE FAWKIN fr.
And lastly adding the twist that her brother Jonathan is James half brother and HER half-brother makes it so weird. Like I get that SHE personally doesn't share blood with Hook. But ur half-brother's half-brother is now your husband......YALL DONT THINK THATS WEIRD??? Mind you this is coming from someone who heavily watches Game of Thrones and house of Dragons so I shouldn't be weirded out by it right???? But idk I feel like it's a shitty copout as to why her dad treated Jonathan like shit like if you hate him that bad idk kill him???? or sell him???? idk there were other ways to do this.
All in all this book wasnt it for meeeeee
idk what the next book I'll review is but ill let yall know byeeee!