Review: Pretty Reckless

Pretty Reckless by L.J. Shen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not a fan. I found this book deeply disturbing and not in a smart, thoughtful way. In the end I mostly felt soured by the experience of reading it. For now my concerns are primarily communicated in the highlights if you’re interested in why.

I gave it three stars for technical proficiency. The prose is fine and it tells an original story. But the morality of it. The psychology. The perspective. The warped, confounding internal logic and, most of all, the confusing characterizations all add up to a great big no. No to the rationalizations for ridiculous behavior. No to what adds up to an apologia to cruelty and privileged bitchiness.

I thought about saying nothing at all. But this book is nominated for best romance, and I do have opinions about this, and I imagine I’m not the only one. So this extremely brief review is for anyone else who read this book and said wtf.

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