Twisted Love
This is the first time I have had to read the words “Itty Bitty Titty Committee” in a book, and I pray it will be the last.
Seriously, this book was so incredibly terrible. I get the idea of wanting a possessive boyfriend, but Alex is straight-up psychotic. And not in a good way. Quite frankly, the melodrama of his traumatic past and “revenge” plot was a little much for me. Not to mention the fact that every time he was having a flashback or plotting his revenge, I couldn’t help but read it in the Lego Batman voice—an excellent movie, by the way. If Alex Volkov is the kind of man you’re looking for, I urge you: please get some help.
The Deal
Why does every popular BookTok author insist on tearing every other female character down in order to make the main character look better? Hannah couldn’t care less about hockey legend Garrett Graham, which is shocking considering he seems to be using magical witch powers because every single other female simply loses all agency and thought in his presence because he is just oh so dreamy.
Side note: if the main character of a romance novel is traumatized from a violent rape that happened in her past, don’t make the love interest an overpowering man who constantly refuses to take the word “no” for an answer. Consent anyone?
Icebreaker
Good lord this was bad. As grateful as I am to finally have a character in a romance novel who actively goes to therapy and advocates for it… I think I’d prefer it if she just didn’t. Anastasia talks like she herself is a therapist, and this book proves that sometimes overcommunication is just as frustrating as miscommunication. It’s hard to stay invested when half of the book is extremely graphic sex scenes and the other half reads like a self-help book.
Also: THIS BOOK IS NOT ENEMIES TO LOVERS. It’s barely even hate to love. Anastasia vaguely dislikes Nathan for approximately three seconds before they get together. Vague dislike at the very beginning of a book is not ENEMIES.
Honestly, this book bored me. The stakes were painfully low, the characters were dull and irritating, and Anastasia’s eating disorder was just barely brushed over and never really brought up again. I honestly could not care less about the roommates and their, I’m sure, equally boring love stories, but Hannah Grace is dutifully writing books about them anyway.
Fourth Wing
This glorified dragon training montage took the BookTok world by storm over the summer. Aside from the fact that the main character’s primary personality trait is that she is small and petite and her bones just randomly pop out of their sockets, the part that really made it difficult for me to enjoy the book was the mere fact that the dragon—a mythical, powerful and majestic creature which the whole book centers around—chortles. Let me be clear: I don’t entirely know what a chortle is, but I know a dragon should not do it. The entire first half of the book is a series of training scenes as the characters prepare to bond with their dragons. We’re told repeatedly how the slightest weakness can prove them unworthy and lead to their death. And yet at every turn, the main character Violet proves exactly how unworthy she is. She can’t even stay on the dragon for longer than five seconds, but instead of being instantly scorched alive, her dragon spares her every time and helps her.
This is not the only continuity error. Another glaring plot hole is the constant time jumps. One chapter will cover the span of one day, and approximately ten people die and so much drama happens, then months will pass until the next chapter, during which absolutely nothing happens. How can they have literally everything happen in one day then pretend absolutely nothing happened and no one died for months at a time? You will not catch me reading the sequel.
