Yeah a one star but I'm still gonna read the next one because I needdddd to be proven wrong about these characters.
❌ Heavy trigger warning for SA among other things discussed below❌
❌Heavy spoilers below❌
This concept is so good. The FMC being brought lower than low, only to rise up and become stronger. Love that trope, whatever is called. Love the dark romance aspects. I can ride with a lot of shitty things happening, especially if revenge/redemption is in the cards. And truly a lot of that was in this book. Like,,, a LOT. The hinge point for me though is that the majority of it comes from the MMCs themselves. From both sides of this story (the then and the now). IF the author can pull off redemption arcs for all these guys, I can see myself loving this series. As it is, I read through a ton of my top most despised things to come across (from the MMCs, at least), and whether or not it will all be worth it is still up in the air. We'll see how the next book goes.
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Here are my random, disjointed notes from reading:
🔹The taking of her virginity scene gave me the ick and he's so proud of himself afterward for tearing into her and making her body like "art" with the amount of blood afterward and not making her come and not even realizing she was in pain the whole time because he so focused on himself. A real winner here.
🔹A couple hours later he fucks his favorite club bunny to get the FMC out of his mind but we're supposed to find it romantic that he thinks of the FMC to get himself hard enough to do it.
🔹She then sees them naked together and puts two and two together and is hurt but because of body betrayal, he taunts her with having just slept with the club bunny (more than once, assumedly, since he did it with the woman in the main area then she was in his room with him when the FMC knocked) into letting him fuck her again that same night and also tells her "I already know I'll never feel this way with anyone else." Girl please drop him.
🔹If ^this^ stuff is your idea of romance because the manwh0re later decides he only wants the FMC, that's really sad.
🔹The constant talking by the MMCs of all the women they fuck. The beginning, middle, or ends of their time with said women they fuck separately or together. Why am I subjecting myself to this?
🔹The mega ultra slut shaming and "I can smell the yeast from here" of all the strippers and club bunnies by the old ladies and the FMC and even the MMCs and other side characters. Also the slut shaming of the FMC.
🔹The actual physical abuse of the FMC by one MMC. Multiple times, resulting bruises and her being terrified to sleep or be alone with him. This is the same MMC whose mother was abused btw and who despised his birth father for it. Apple, what are you doing so close to that tree?
🔹This same MMC killed his step father (the FMC's dad), made decisions that resulted in his mother being killed, and traded the FMC to a rival MC to be raped and neglected and brought to the absolute brink of death. We're supposed to like this guy at some point.
🔹This is the most filthy disgusting misogynistic ultra ultra misogynistic fictional motorcycle club I've ever read about. BOTH of them are. I could go on but I didn't take the notes I should have for this. Just trust me though??
Petty annoyance: The strippers are had on every surface all night long and walk around naked until the old ladies come and kick them out with all the slut shaming and literally spraying them like dogs to wake them and then while the he-men are out, the old ladies clean up the club house AND the members' rooms. They wash and change their sheets, and disinfect every surface from whatever diseases they keep saying the strippers and club bunnies have. What benefit comes with being an old lady in this MC?
🔹The other MMC who just goes on taking orders from and protecting her rapist because he's his president. He at one point says he still hasn't figured out who it was that raped her for weeks, but the lie detector test determined that was a lie because when he told them he discovered her in the basement, the prez literally was angrily spouting that he had kept her there to warm his dick until she died or something like that.
🔹Not the other other other other(?) MMC being jealous of his president bc he got to "dip his cock" in her. The prez is the guy who repeatedly raped her btw, and he knew this even as it was happening. He's then quick to mention that he doesn't actually mean that he's jealous he didn't rape her, because he enjoys consent and actually feeling the woman come. Please do not get me started on the intricacies of how women who are raped can and do sometimes come, and how people need to understand that it happens as a bodily response to forced stimulation so we can stop asking "did you come?" as some sort of indicator of whether or not it was actually rape. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
🔹Wow. Imagine you get home one day and the woman you've started seeing is asleep in bed with another man and wakes up like, "oh you're home, I missed you. Oh, him? He's with us now. I want him too. Don't make me choose." And after being hurt for five seconds, you're just like, "damn baby, that's good. Let us both fuck you now." That's how abruptly these characters were pulled into this becoming a why choose situation.
🔹Not the MMC who betrayed her blaming his mother's death on her when it was a result of his deal with the other MC in order to have support for his little coup that resulted in the one he's blaming being kidnapped and raped for weeks with his approval....
Istg if all he has to do to win her back is push her up against another wall in the next book until body betrayal takes over, I will personally campaign my decided hate of this series all over social media.
"Because of her, and the position she was so willing to steal from me, I lost my mother."
🔹Honestly I lowkey hate them all, even the sweet ones. But having read a different series from this author, I do believe they could possibly....maybe...hopefully....turn this around and have me accepting these MMCs even when 3/5 of her guys are currently beyond redemption to me. Agh please, I want that so bad. Prove me wrong 🙏🏽