The Ritual

"Ok, I went into this book knowing dark romance was not my thing, but I tried to have an open mind. Putting the concerning red flag behaviors aside, book boyfriends can get away with more than actual real life men, this just wasn't a good story. If rape is your thing, 80% of this is rape until she "falls in love", but it's the same scene regurgitated over and over again, and I'm reasonably confident that some of those angles will never work, not to mention the amount of time FMC passes out is concerning from a medical standpoint, does this girl not see a gyno or a doctor in general? The "romance" aspect literally goes from "I'm just using you" to "I am bewitched by you body and soul" and the only thing that I can find to incite that change was a***. MMC is described as "over the top hero" but multiple times he shows no regard for consent and likes to demonstrate 'who owns you', then magically is like "I'll make all your fantasies come true, whilst maintaining your boundaries." While on the the subject of Ryat, he does a complete personality shift where he goes from complete badass with "touch her and die" vibes to a "I can't believe they found her" withering wall flower, he bounces somewhat back, but come on. Blakely does the somewhat opposite, where she goes from "save me Ryat" to, BTW I tied up you ex fiance and hid her in the closet so our dads and you can disposer of her later, then we can have sex on her grave. Not so sure when that shift happened either. I did enjoy Ryat and Blake's banter, when they weren't weeping in each other's arms or fornicating like teenagers at sleep away camp, it was fun to see the "big, bad, domineering, man's man" get brought to his knees by something other than sex for a change in a book. And for the 20% where there was a somewhat believable suspense plot, it was pretty solid. And for that reason, 3/10."

"Before reading this book, I would recommend you double check the trigger warnings. It’s marketed as a dark romance and it is definitely dark. I think classifying it as a romance depends very loosely on the definition, I would say it’s more like dark obsession. This book is mostly just **** with a little plot and very light character development (in my opinion) so if that’s not your cup of tea, this book is absolutely not for you. I did enjoy reading it and I understand why some people love it as much as they do, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t also uncomfortable during some scenes (and I’m not talking about the murders) 😬"

"Great dark college romance, read the trigger warnings!! Found myself falling in love and hating characters. Tear jerker at a few moments. But gave culty fraternity secret society vibes. "

"This is the spiciest book I have ever read. I liked it. "

"Read the triggers!!! Cant say that enough! I saw this on booktok. Thought I would give it a good. Read it in 2 days. Couldn’t put it down. Ryat is every dirty romance guy you want. Read it if you are in that dark era. "

"Honestly loved this book and cannot wait to read the rest of the series. My friend who also read this series says that the books are very repetitive though, which I’m not looking forward to, like there has to be something that comes to mind to change the plot in the books! Even tho this was a 600 page book I finished it quickly because I just could not put it down. Loved the plot twists!!! Personal opinion but I have when at the end of books the epilogue skips over a decade. Like it’s cool to see where they are now but I would rather keep it just a few years in the future but that’s just my opinion on it. A lot of plot twists so many that sometimes I did tend to be a little confused and have to re-read some pages to try to better understand it. "

"Dnf I couldn’t get past how rapey this book is."

"*spoiler mention* the spicy scenes were entertaining and frequent, the action was enjoyable if not predictable and unbelievable at times. The constant back and forth of the FMC's attitude towards the MMC was a bit grating at times because she's pretty vapid and doesn't think things through; throws fits when she doesn't get her way immediately and believes everything she hears without any consideration of if it may be true or not. The last 15% or so of the book was not enjoyable for me at all because of the repeated mention and focus on FMC's pregnancy."

"RAYTTTTTTT"

"I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this book since I’ve read it. 😍🥵The Sinner just came in and I can’t wait to dive in! Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️"