Ray

I feel like i HAVE to give this book 5 stars. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. 

The poetry was so beautiful, so touching. The way the author brings across what she wants to say was amazing. I've annotated the absolute hell out of this book, every line written was so meaningful and gorgeous.

I've never read anything like this before and i don't think I'll ever read anything like this again. Wow.

Cabin at the end of the world is an all time favourite for me, but this one by the same author just didn't hit as hard. 
It's definitely good, it's very heart pumping, very fast paced and high stakes. 
I had fun.

LOOOOOOVED this.

The biggest mindfuck about this was definitely the characters.
they aren't villains like you would typically expect of a home invasion. They were genuinely nice people who've been brainwashed into doing these things. I found that so interesting.
And this one is definitely not for people who don't like opne ended books but i absolutely loved coming up with theories for what i thought happens in the book.
The M Night Shyamalan movie is great in my opinion for those who've read the book, because then you can visualise the things here so much better. Apart from majorly changing the ending, I'd say the movie is a great adaptation.


An all time favourite, for sure. 

This author duo is great with MM romances. This one was a fun, fast paced, one sitting read for me. 
I can't say this was my absolute favourite book, but it was still so hot and so fun, and the characters are so cute.

It's funny how ordinary this book appears at first glance. Gay, hockey enemies to lovers with daddy issues. A pretty common trope, one that I've read before, so I wasn't expecting anything too great about this. 

Oh my god was I wrong. This ended up being definitely one of the best MM romances I've ever read. 

I love how the Daddy issues isn't just a plot point to increase the length of the novel, but Preston's entire character is built around that. You can see how his trauma affects his everyday life, into his strict perfectionism, his refusal to seek help, and his constant inner voice telling him he's worthless. 
It was so heartbreaking to read. 

Jeremy is literal gold. He was so amazingly understanding of Preston's struggles and was so gentle with him. 
I love how delicately this was handled.


Oh the spice though... It was so good. What a perfect package of a book. I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

Easily my all time favourite romance book. No matter how much of a shitty mood I'm in Ilya ALWAYS cheers me up. These two have my whole heart <3

If you're gonna read one MM romance your whole life, I'd say it should be this one.

CW for infedility 

This is an emotional stepbrothers romance, that majorly involves the themes of grief and loss. 
If you're looking for stepbrother taboo I wouldn't say this is the best pick, but it was still pretty good. 

Love how fresh this felt!!! Great book, one of my all time favs dark romances of all time 

Slow literary mysteries aren't really my thing but I still liked this book. Sharp, clever, witty narration and writing style. 

This is definitely the book I'll be recommending to sound smart lol

Volume 1 was fine but Volume 2 was so good. So creative and creepy in a way that only junji ito can be. Fish on arachnoid legs, who would've thought? 
Also loved the bonus stories too

I'm not really sure how I want to rate this book because there are some things that i loved and some things that annoyed me to no end. 


Great parts, the vibes were GIVING. The gothic setting and those descriptions, I felt transported to the castle of verenmore. Absolutely loved the setting. 
I actually really liked Vad's character too. He was always shrouded in a mystery, and I was curious to know more about him. 
The running plotline was cool too. A compelling history of an enchanted castle on a hill. 

Also I think this is the one decent student teacher romance I've read. I've tried a few but they always feel so cliche, so i was surprised that I enjoyed the romance. 

The bad parts, the side characters were painfully underdeveloped. They had zero dimension, zero personality, and only were introduced in scenes to hype up Vad. Seriously, 2 separate people walk up to her on her very first day, to tell her she has great sexual tension with the teacher, just because of a ‘lingering stare'. On the very first day? 

If I took a shot for every time someone said they were ‘unsettled' by Vad's presence, I would be hammered. I felt like they were having the exact same conversations over and over again.

So yeah, i would say this would be great for a mood read, if you're feeling dark academia, gothic, witchery, pick this up. 

This was a great read for me, since I've been following Madison Fox's YouTube ever since her Princess of Paperback days, and this was exactly the kind of smutty fast read I was expecting from her. It's fun, it's light-hearted, it's amazing. 
I can tell she really had fun with it, some of the scenes were so creative and fun. 

Overall great for a nice little spicy read if you're in the mood.
Can't wait for the rest of the series, especially Sydney's character in the next book.

Extremely disturbing book and i don't think the mere existence of a character in a book has been this disturbing for me. Lori was deranged, but in a very confusing way. She felt a lot of feelings yet she was detached. Her character is so well done.
And yes, you are supposed to hate her. That's the whole point. She is unlikeable as hell and difficult to follow and relate to and that's what makes this so beautifully complicated. 

The best part of this book for me is the fabulous imagery at the river. I still have it imprinted in my mind like i watched a movie. The vibe setting was so good.

The ending will definitely stay with me for a long time too 

Overall, definitely worth the read in my opinion. 

I liked how this book referenced many other exorcism and possession media and the commentary that Karen's blogs part gives us, but I found the rest of the story a bit cheesy. Maybe this plot is just overdone I don't know. I just didn't enjoy reading this book all that much.

Oh my god this was so hot. 
I finished it in one sitting, its so fast paced, so fun, and it has a great rivals to lovers plot.
I loved the characters, especially the way they talk to each other was so fun.

I would have loved some flashback scenes from the past to understand more about their dynamic when they were younger, so I wish that was a part of this. 

Also, don't get me wrong, I loved the brother characters but sometimes they were very creepily invested into their little brothers' love lives. It felt a little weird to me, but it might just be my opinion. 

Overall I enjoyed this.

I don't usually read romance series, but this one totally makes an exception. Something about Reid's writing style is so soothing and light hearted, it's easy to just sink into the warmth of this book. 

Personal preference tho, i liked Heated Rivalry, the next book in this series more, but this one was amazing too. 

I liked the concept of this book, the incredibly unique way to express post natal depression. I just think this was too slow paced for me and it took too long to get to the good parts

I have no idea why I'm so obsessed with these books

This is definitely my favorite in the series so far, because one, I think the story and the plot comes full circle here and we finally get full clarity on everything we've been wondering and two, I love Ren and Luth soooo much! 
Their story was so much more wholesome and adorable and totally not the direction I was expecting it to go but I loved it. Spice was fantastic, as always. 
I love that the plot does move on to things after Dash's escape, which makes me very excited for the finale.

Small little nitpicky things I was bothered by, otherwise I would have rated this even higher but overall,  a fantastic time!

I'm still trying to understand what exactly this book is trying to convey, since he brings up so many things - a character study into a prostitute, who she is, and what lead her to become one, her journey of self exploration and finding love and understanding the life around her, quite a few history lessons into sex, prostitution, and female pleasure. 
I found it a little weird when the character go into explicit details about how to pleasure a woman, what was this book trying to do?

I'm also trying to understand why the book contradicts itself so much in the ending.

while talking entirely about finding love by surrendrence, and finding freedom while letting go, and literally talking about how movies always have that one moment when she's leaving and he catches her at the last moment when HE LITERALLY DOES THE EXACT SAME THING. They tie themselves to each other at the end when the book goes into such detail about why that is a bad thing.

The writing is beautiful though, and it's really making me think about things brought up in the book, and I think in that matter the book did reach me. 

I really don't know how i would rather this, but I'll settle on 4.5.

Wowwwww this is definitely going in as one of my favourite gay romances of all time. 


The sex scenes were like nothing I've ever read before. This was more enemies to lovers than any other book I've ever read that claims to be enemies to lovers, because these two actually BICKER like the stepbrothers they are. It was hilarious, it was sexy, and God I was screaming the entire time. 

And later on the book becomes more about the romance, and the sweetness was just as good as the spice. It is always awesome to follow a gay couple find the courage to get together against all odds. 


I definitely love Avi and Ky, and them together as a couple. 
What an amazing book!!

I'll definitely be checking out more from this author.

So as I was reading this book, i kept wondering if this was CE Ricci's first book. And i was right, and I think that says a lot. 

Lots to unpack here. (🚨Light SPOILERS for a few plot points 🚨)

Firstly the author makes it abundantly clear that this is a book she intends you to go in completely blind, and gives a very vague trigger warning while also requesting readers to not post anything online. That is very dangerous obviously, since this book deals with VERY graphic sexual abuse of a minor. I think it's really important to know that when you're getting into this, especially if you're sensitive to it and I think authors need to understand that. 

Also there is a lot of dub con situations here, which I don't usually mind but here it was quite disturbing to read honestly. I mean, one of the characters is literally begging him to stop. 

Which brings me to River Lennox. This man is a walking sexual harrassment report. I can tell that the author was trying to create an enemies to lovers dynamic by using a bickering, arguing dynamic with these two but oh god it failed miserably, atleast for me. If these two aren't immaturely punching and slamming each other into walls they're exchanging one sexual inneundo for a homophobic slur. 
Yeah, Ciaráin pretty much throws around homophobic slurs like confetti. All the while River is forcing himself on him when he's CLEARLY told him no. Dozens of times. Catch a hint, dude!


Also a shit ton of plot holes. I don't understand why Rain keeps insisting that he isn't gay but then has a shit experience with a woman (which, why is there an MF scene in an MM book?!) he decides to conclude that he might be ASEXUAL. Certainly not gay. 
Also why is the coach sending his all star players on a 4 week getaway to a random cabin to “bond” without any practice? And that Thanksgiving scene, what is going on?

And the third act miscommunication makes no sense. These two are so toxic. Don't get me wrong, I love me a good toxic couple but these two are toxic for no reason. 
I think the book is just a tad bit too poorly executed. 

From the author's note, 
“I wrote a story that was anti-horny. I wrote a story that was almost erotic until it really, really wasn't. It's the least attractive thing I've ever made, but it's mine. This is, unfortunately, me. But if you're reading this, then this is also, unfortunately, you”

I've always loved fever dream style LGBTQ books, lots of people compare it to Exqu site corpse by Poppy Z Brite, and i would agree. Half the time time I had no clue where exactly the story was going. Yet i absolutely loved every moment of this and I couldn't look away at all.
This was toxic, very triggering extreme horror. Either you like it on some weird level or you are absolutely repulsed.
I was fascinated, to say the least. 

Solid read. It was very well written, the plot was so twisty and i never saw the twists coming.

Amazing! Definitely will be reading more Riley Sager

This was a pretty heavy read for me, and so worth it. 

This book explores the complexities of victimhood, primarily. Our society really simplifies issues especially with sexual abuse but there's so many layers to it, and this book really brought that out. 
Vanessa is one of the most complex characters I've ever read, such an interesting exploration into the mentality of her, as a young girl but also as an adult. How the abuse absolutely destroyed her life. I mean, I think we all know that abuse is damaging but I was not prepared for the absolute extent of it. 

Another thing that the book focuses on is girlhood. That age of 15, 16, when your worldview changes and you suddenly discover all these new parts of yourself and you discover the sexual power that you now newly hold. And that keeps becoming more and more relavant everyday with the increase in sexualisation of minors. I've never read anything that captured it so perfectly. 

There were just some scenes that blew my mind. Every word felt like it was handpicked. It was so simple yet so heavy. The bare truths laid out and it hit me so hard. 

The author says she's worked 18 years on this book, it really shows. 
Its genuinely one of the best, and most complicated books I've read in my life.