I was fully not going to write a review for this but nothing could have prepared me (not even the blurb) for the fact that our main character has a twin brother named Owen and her name is Misery. That mere detail alone is worth a review.
The last thing I expected after taking my sweet time reading Beloved, was to devour a romance about an arranged marriage between a Vampyre (stylistically spelled with that “y” for God knows what reason) and a werewolf from a woman who once wrote about women in stem and one about chess before this, but that’s were I found myself. I should be disgustingly embarrassed at how fast I read this, a record of less than 24 hrs even but I was buying whatever this woman was selling me.
In fact I will buy whatever else this woman sells me honestly because it’s just sooooo easy. Hazelwood might very well be my comfort author at this point because there might be misery but there’s no mystery to what her books will give me. Maybe every once in a while the woman won’t be in STEM but instead a vampyre (with a y) who can hack computers. And the man won’t be a rival scientist But instead a husband of convenience But at the end of the day she essentially writes the same story with the same characters. Some people will say Ali Hazelwood writes badly because everyone (expect the main character) can tell where the story is going but I think she does it on purpose and I love her for it.
However, what fully shocks me about her latest remix of obsessed man meets oblivious woman is that as much as the man is still, huge and big and towering, the woman isn’t small. Smaller than him perhaps but she’s described as tall which is surprising to say the least. Especially since after years and years of having this dynamic she decides to change it in a werewolf romance where huge man x small woman makes the most sense. But I guess applause to her for mixing that one part up. And that’s the only part she mixes. If you’ve read one Hazelwood, you’ve read them all.
The first chapter is a bit of a drawl. It’s so much waxing about interspecies politics and how it works, told exclusively through boring dialogue. And even with such a chapter one, the plot remains thinner than the beauty standards in the flapper era. It is as indiscernable as my mental health. You ask me what went on in this book, I have nothing to tell you really. And that’s because I’m obviously not here for the plot. I don’t read these books for the plot or setting or anything of that sort of value. Never have, never will. I’m only here for the fluff (pun intended, cause in case you forgot this is about werewolves), the pining and the love confessions that could go toe to toe with Bridgerton.
I was feet kicking at this. And then there was plane scene that left me so scandalised I was blushing alone in my home. It’s all very reminiscent of Wattpad 2014 where I stayed awake til the AMs giggling to myself over the stupidest werewolf fiction known to man. This read like a fond and cringey childhood memory. Also if you didn’t grow up in the asylum that is Wattpad and have no clue what the omegaverse is, please do look it up cause the smut in this book feels like being hit with a freight train of weird writing and anatomical decisions.
Needless to say, this book is a goofy time. Whatelse can you expect from a main character named Misery who is a vampire (stylistically spelled with a Y). It is so unserious that writing a serious review about it is damn near impossible. Books like this are why I tell people not to equate my reading habits to my intellect because half the time I’m not reading Chinua Achebe or Maya Angelou. I’m reading goofy supernatural romance with zero plot, dumb third act conflicts and tons of fluff and badly written spice. And I’m having fun doing it. Solid 3/5.
