I read the tropes and trigger warnings for this book and I immediately had to get my grabby little hands on it. Then as soon as it landed on my kindle I dove in. I didn’t read the blurb, I didn’t check on GR to see if this was part of a series. I just went in completely hyped to read a book that hit all of my happy places. Then page one I see the playlist and I’m thinking this book is my spirit animal. Over half of the songs I love and the other half are songs I don’t know from musicians I love so obviously this book was written just for me. Sadly it just wasn't to be. 

 

The prologue had me settling in, ready for wherever this little journey was going to take me. But then I just couldn’t connect to the author’s writing style. I found it was very much tell, and not show and I am personally then struggle to get lost in the story. It felt disjointed but then I don’t know if that was because I wasn’t getting caught up in the book and so my attention wandered and then I missed things. I feel like maybe I needed to read the first book in the series because I still have no idea what happened to Lincoln but it was like a shadow over the story at times. 

 

I really didn’t connect to the characters which I really wanted to but I just felt a whole lot of meh. The story could have been good and I really liked the premise but it felt like it was rushed. And it played out almost in point form, over days rather than weeks or months. Normally I don’t have an issue with young college kids being too mature and world aware for their age but these guys felt like toddlers putting on a batman costume and thinking they are batman. I don’t want you constantly telling me you're bad and tough. Yes your actions also kind of backed that up but there was no real proof that anything you got away with doing was anything more than dumb luck, then you claim it’s because you’re a “blackwood” and your dad is so influential but at no time did either of those things come into play except when you were telling a teenaged girl to shut up. 

 

I don’t know. I didn’t enjoy it but judging from the reviews on the first book maybe it’s a me thing. Maybe it would be different if I had read the first book and got some background on all of these brothers. Or maybe this can’t be read as a standalone and I’m an idiot for reading it as such. Either way if this is your kind of book, enjoy. 

 

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