[10/10/21: edited rating from three to two bcos the more i think about this book... the more annoyed i get at the lack of everything. also, the more im reminded of chapter seventeen the more grossed out and pissed i feel.] buckle up, bitches. we’re about to go for a ride😎 what did we learn from this book? that nina zenik and matthias helvar are the superior enemies to lovers who are travelling on a dangerous excursion together. no one does it like them and can’t believe these two bitches here had the audacity to try. ***** the superfluous language was something i enjoyed in the last book bcos the author’s writing style really is beautiful, but from the first chapter here it pissed me off💀 mainly bcos Emilia said the same sh*t just in a different font... over and over again. her thoughts and feelings towards Wrath were repeated over and over, just saying the same thing of him being treacherous and how he betrayed her to describing in lengthy detail the landscape of hell— again, she said the same thing within the same paragraph but used different synonyms and it grated on me sooooo much. it was like she purposefully used big words to flex but when actually paired all together, the sentences were clumsy. they just didn’t flow and i was metaphorically tripping over my tongue. this was all in the first chapter... scattered throughout, just dropped in even though Emilia had said the same sh*t just slightly differently several paragraphs ago: exhibit a) exhibit b) exhibit c) exhibit d) exhibit e) exhibit f) (and don’t get me started on the phrase “prideful hubris”🤡 that sh*t bugged me so much). In this hatred we were united.
Wrath, the mighty demon of war and betrayer of my soul, shifted.
He’d turned on me the second it suited his needs. He was a selfish creature. Just like Nonna had warned.
A monster among beasts. I could never allow myself to forget what he was. One of the Wicked. The immortal beings who stole souls for the devil, and the selfish midnight creatures my grandmother warned my twin and me to hide from our whole lives.
Wrong or not, I wanted to hurt him the way his deception had gutted me.
If I recalled correctly, delivery of my soul to Pride granted him freedom from the underworld. Something he once said he prized above all else.
How exceptionally marvelous for him. His stay was over just as mine was beginning. And all he had to do was betray me to secure his heart’s greatest desire. Holding his intense stare, I nodded back, thankful for his treachery. It was the last time I’d fall for his lies. With any luck, though, it would be the start of him and his wicked brothers falling for mine.
take a shot for every time Emilia says the words “selfish” or “betrayed” or any word that would come up in a thesaurus if you generate the words “selfish” and “betrayed”.
i also think it annoyed me more than maybe it would others bcos in the previous book, Wrath’s betrayal was so mediocre for me. i just shrugged like “okay🤪” and moved along bcos it didn’t feel that gut-wrenching bcos their relationship felt so basic, underdeveloped and surface-level.
idk, she just didn’t have to keep repeating the same sh*t. just one well-executed inner monologue expressing her feelings, her betrayal and how it was impacting her would have sufficed just fine. it just felt too clumsy and rambling, like there was no clear direction, you know?
and i love vivid descriptions in writing. not all readers do— for some it can bog down the story and be distracting and normally that never happens for me, but it did here. so it wasn’t a great way to start the book. i was struggling lemme tell you. i ended up skimming chunky paragraphs bcos they didn’t add anything to the story and i just focused on the actual dialogue between Emilia and Wrath (and even that was pretty boring and a lil rigid).
like the moment Wrath undid Emilia’a corset? i was ready to become a whor* bcos that sh*t always slaps. always oozes with sexual tension...
...this sh*t was so anticlimactic. i feel completely crushed right now🤡 i was like bro???? that’s it??? where is the corset-ripping demon prince shenanigans???
soooo, the first few chapters did not give me much hope. i was pretty resigned
*****
now getting past my annoyance with the beginning... let’s talk about Emilia and Wrath.
the beginning also confused me and felt redundant af— after Wrath’s betrayal at the end of book one (which i low-key can’t even fully remember what he did but Emilia reminded me enough of it in the first chapter so id never forget... thanks girly🙂) they begin this book being “enemies” sniping, griping and taunting each other, vouching their hate and blah blah blahhhhhhh.
then within a few chapters Wrath is already nurturing Emilia, tending to her illness, protecting her while she pines and lusts after him... so i was like “where tf are y’all enemies?? AGAIN??” it was my biggest issue with the first book. their enemies to lovers arc was so weak and juvenile on both ends that i struggled to truly ship them romantically. i mean, i like them, but i don’t think they’re soulmates, always and forever, fangirl screaming type of sh*t.
being told constantly of how vicious Wrath is, how much they hate each other and how much they’re angsting over each other was exhausting— i would like to see it. it was like someone adamantly telling you the sky is green while you’re stood staring at a sky that is clearly blue... how am i supposed to believe what you say if all evidence proves to the contrary? so trying to believe they were enemies just had me blinking like
👁👄👁 it felt like the agony of book one all over again... but on steroids.
were they cute, spicy and a bit swoony? sure.
but as enemies to lovers? ...no f*cking way.
if this hasn’t been relentlessly and vehemently promoted as an enemies to lovers, i would probably like this a lot more. but all the advertising and publicity for the series relies on it being enemies to lovers, and in my opinion it truly isn’t. Six of Crows, These Violent Delights and The Cruel Prince are fantasy enemies to lovers... this book ain’t even in the same ballpark. she is banned from their ballpark on grounds of fraud and false advertising.
with the three above examples i understood thoroughly the reason they were enemies, what put them on opposing sides of a war, a political agenda and whatever else. still in book two, if someone put a gun to my head demanding me to tell them WHY these two are enemies... i– adios bitches✌🏻
it just felt like anonymous animosity more than a fuelled hatred. bcos Wrath was a wicked prince of hell (still remains to be seen) and is so so sooooo evil, who Emilia was always warned about, naturally they wouldn’t get along. but i just struggled so much to pinpoint their emotions and WHY they felt/acted that way— nothing ever seemed to be fully explained, more so just convenient for some conflict to prolong the story and unravel the plot.
it wasn’t until the incident in chapter seventeen that i had a solid reason for any hatred... but that’s a whole book and a half of me not being convinced of their enemies to lovers arc :///
”Pleasure. Seduction.” I gathered up my courage. “I want you to stay. All night. With me. And if you even think of bowing afterward and leaving like you did last time you touched me, I will hunt you down and make you regret it.”
“Threaten me again.”
His raw tone indicated he liked it very much. “Twisted heathen.”
“Only the best for you.”
now i know i just shat on the whole enemies to lovers trope here... but Emilia and Wrath’s relationship was truly the saviour of this book. i couldn’t have given a f*ck about anything else😭
when these two were good? they were sooooo goddam good. i read their scenes with bated breath bcos i was low-key addicted to their interactions.
during the actual ✨spicy sexy sexy times✨ the tension and chemistry were so good. the end of chapter eight is where this started to pick up for me— the tension between them in the corridor was immaculate vibes and had me on the edge of my seat. THAT’S what i wanted from the beginning and was pouting like a petulant little kid bcos i didn’t get that feeling for a while. (i even ranted to my mam about my annoyance while she just nodded her head like she understood wtf i was talking about).
then it was around the 70% mark that i became REALLY invested👀
His kiss consumed and seduced me. Just as he’d meant it to. It wasn’t fast or hard or fueled by hatred or fury. It was an ember, a promise of the blazing fire to come with a bit of careful tending.
(even tho i felt like the pacing of their relationship was off... i didn’t care bcos i just wanted something to sink my teeth into since the actual fantasy element of the plot just flopped for me).
and lemme tell you... i was NOT expecting explicit sexual scenes💀 the moment i saw the word co*ck you best believe i gasped bcos the first book had been YA and i had expected this to be too... but also not complaining bcos Emilia and Wrath in that lagoon?😏 id be having public sex too, Emilia, where hordes of demons can wander past to say hello if Wrath was all up on my business.
bcos idk there was just something about Wrath that hit different in this book— i think him being in his domain, in his element, he came across waaaaay sexier and more mysterious. all his smirking, sexual innuendos and protectiveness just made this so much more enjoyable to read. the first 25% of this book truly had me scared for a minute bcos i wasn’t honestly enjoying any of it but Wrath and Emilia’s relationship gave me hope (i even skimmed most of the scenes where Emilia isn’t with Wrath bcos i just didn’t care lol).
I placed my lips to his ear. “Are you sensing the knife I’m now considering stabbing you with, your highness?”“If this is an attempt to change the topic, you’re failing miserably.” His hand dropped beneath the table, landing gently on my knee. There was little doubt it was a nonverbal acknowledgment of my most recent lie. “I am even more interested in where this may lead, my lady. You forget what sin I rule over.
I am rather fond of a bit of knife-play.”
anytime Wrath wasn’t there i was waiting for him to return like ”excuse me. excuse me. daddy? sorry. daddy? sorry. daddy? sorry.”
*****
while Wrath felt more fleshed out in this book (still not as much as id have liked), his brothers were all boring— i think in my review of the previous book i compared them all to slimy, white collar CEO’s who have a surplus of sexual assault allegations against them. again, they were supposed to be the big, bad Wicked, as vicious than your nightmares... respectfully... 🤡where??🤡 so the plot just felt redundant, boring and anticlimactic bcos they didn’t feel threatening or fleshed out at all. any interactions Emilia had with them were so underwhelming - again i skimmed... a lot.
Pride was the only other brother that i was remotely interested in. he was kinda sexy and alluring... gimme his story please and thank you😌
i just didn’t understand the plot much bcos it didn’t feel like much was revealed? everyone spoke in riddles, again that superfluous language making the dialogue stiff— like none of the Wicked ever spoke in a solid, coherent sentence without embellishing it with riddles and such. i imagine they made Shakespeare shiver in his grave.
exhibit a)
“The night my nonna attacked you… you seemed to know her. How?”
“Curses are curious things.” He downed another glass and splashed more into his empty cup. “Sometimes they’re like trees. They stay rooted to the spot they’re planted. Other times they’re like wildflowers. Their seeds float along with the bees and fly with the birds. They tangle and grow and thrive outside of that original patch they were sprinkled upon. Kind of like keys. Not all keys fit in locks. Some keys are much more cunning.”
exhibit b)
“Tell me about the curse, then.”
“It’s a tale so old its origins are known only to a few. And even their memories have become copperlike with the age and patina that’s formed over them, dulling their shine until the shadow of what was is all that remains.”
the whole book was like this and it drove me mad. again, if u asked me to summarise the plot of this book? adios bitches, part two✌🏻
idk, if i rated the book solely for the plot it would be one star for sure.
then in addition to this, being constantly told that Emilia was this bloodthirsty, violent heroine who wanted to inflict pain on Wrath and just anyone who wronged her was kinda awks bcos she thought wearing red lipstick and sneering on occasion made her maniacal and badass... when her actions couldn’t have been further from the truth
When the demon responsible for Vittoria’s death finally felt the flames of my fury, I’d hopefully have burned his House of Sin to ash.
i truly never felt an ounce of that fury? that vengeance? and her desire to be deceitful never felt fulfilled— she never actively tried to learn any tricks or anything. she still felt like the somewhat impulsive and passive girl we met at the beginning of book one. she was all talk and no action. she felt idle and aimless.
At home, I wouldn’t second-guess my choice to weave them into my hair. But here…
I chose a violent, bloody shade of red and painted my lips the color of murder instead.
okay, i guess? if you actually fulfilled those fantasies of yours, this would be a cool af line. but Wrath literally did anything and everything for her while she acted like the biggest dumbass with her head in the clouds. like the incident with the pervy Lord at their dinner party. Emilia spoke about gutting him herself with her dinner knife and such, intending to stand up just before Wrath slaughters the guy right at the dinner table.
so just like book one, she relies on everyone else doing things for her or telling her valuable sh*t that is just oh so convenient for her and she never does any of the heavy lifting😭 Anir, Fauna, the Matron— all of them just randomly told Emilia sh*t that wasn’t even on her radar but worked out to her advantage, every time it happened i just shook my head. im never on the edge of my seat bcos the stakes feel so low since i know everything will work out just peachy for Emilia.
like Emilia stumbling across Wrath’s library, picking up a basic, random grimoire and after reading one single passage she figures out she has some kind of magic/power to destroy the whole realm of Hell itself...? it gave me whiplash low-key, one minute she was reading a random book the next she was like “woah this force that lives deep inside of me that i have never known or acknowledged can obliterate Hell”
👁👄👁 ...so can y’all see how convenient everything is for her? there’s zero build up, anticipation or map work to try to figure things out.
or when she has dinner with Envy and he offers to drink a truth serum and answers Emilia’s questions... why tf would he do that!? so much just made zero sense bcos the motivations behind so many actions were solely to provide Emilia with vital information without her having to lift a finger.
and this girl is 💜the shadow witch👻 so why tf ain’t she using her magic??? i mean i may as well be the protagonist if all she’s gonna do is wear pretty dresses, eat some bomb food and simp after Wrath, fantasying about all the positions he’s gonna do when he rearranges her insides.
*****
the final three chapters really turned this around for me, that’s why im settling on a firm three stars. the plot twists regarding Wrath and Emilia were pretty fun to uncover— the ending still has left me confused but in a good way? more curious than frustrated. but i just feel like not much happened? the romance really saved this book. i think without it... this would have seriously flopped bcos the unfurling of the plot was portrayed pretty poorly.
so if you wanna read this for the plot? respectfully, don’t.
curious to see how the final book goes, but i ain’t on the edge of my seat.
