I normally have rules on what I read to make sure that I’m not giving myself the ick, or going to places in my imagination that I don’t want to be in.. but I’m throwing out the rules and reading whatever I’ve heard about on Booktok that I can find at the second hand stores!

Last time, this experiment was extremely successful, and I walked away with some bangers! Let’s see if this was just as good…

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

Unrated

I did not finish this one, but made it about 30% of the way through.

It started to get creepy, and while I was somewhat engaged in the mystery, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat enough to overlook some of that. There were also some pretty intense trigger warnings like un-aliving and self harm, so it was an easy DNF for me.

Five Brothers by Penelope Douglass

Unrated.

Wow. Intense explicit scenes including not full consent. Also, working your way through sleeping with a bunch of brothers is an interesting plot… but why? This one was not for me, and I ended up making it a lot further than I thought I would at around 30%, but it was a no from me.

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Unrated

I made it through the prologue and one page of chapter 1 before putting this one down. Yeah, I might have been open to something a little darker than normal, but this one was giving so much creepy ick that I just had to say no. Shame.

King of Wrath by Anna Huang

2.5 stars

Written in a way that keeps the story flowing enough that you want to see how the characters handle things and how it will all play out. Writing is nice. Content is questionable. Explicit scenes but between two people who treat each other terribly. They are mean, manipulative, punitive, and toxic. Why would you want two characters like that to have a romantic attachment just because of a physical attraction?

---

Welp, that one was less successful than last time… Lots more DNF options and things that stepped over the line of even the ‘throw out the rules’ idea. Perhaps this should be the last one of these I do….

Haha – nah! I still want to try again, so let’s see if next time we can get more amazing reads, or if the DNF train will continue 🙂

Have you read any of these (maybe all the way through)? Let me know what you thought of them.

See You in the Adventures!
Christy Grace