Reviews with content warning for Violence - Ruthless People

Not for me.

I don’t recreate by thinking about the horrible things that people do to one another. I also don’t care to recreate by reading about people who are so dehumanizing to . . . pretty much everyone else. Like, on page two, the central male character reduced his current hook-up to the quality of her throat. Gross.

I hung on through, like, the first five chapters but a full-on torture scene, a passing but still graphic reference to another torturous incident, and v. graphic physical fight later and I realized it wasn’t going anywhere I wanted to go and I did not care at all about any of the characters. (Like, would rather slog through more episodes of Succession because, while that show involves the same ick factor of its characters, there’s at least a lack of physical torture and some wisp of a hope of character development. Hell, I’d even rewatch Game of Thrones before finishing this book because at least the filming locations were pretty and there is also a hope of character development through most of it.)

I literally found reading the reviews of this book to be more engaging than the actual book (note that most of them are better written, with fewer typos and grammatical mistakes).

All the same, I have too many warm fuzzy things to read to bother with this exceptionally harsh (and poorly edited) novel. Next!

Content Warnings

marshallreads's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

romanceschmomance's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This book is THE definition of a mafia read and I was rooting for absolutely no one by the end. HOWEVER, I'm so hooked and I can't wait to see how this series progresses because it is quite the wild ride. Ruthless People was recommended to me by a fellow bookish friend and I was on quite the mafia romance kick.

I haven't read a mafia romance like this especially when you have two very dominant main characters. Everything between Melody and Liam is off the charts, they're chaos, but I quite like it.

End game, they want to rule the world and now that they were arranged to be married, they have to figure out how to do it together. And yep, it's a ride, so buckle in.

I honestly don't know what else to say about this, but I'm planning on reading the entire series. There's many POVs in this and I'm a little curious of the other storylines, yet nervous. The one character that I probably don't care for is Declan. I mean everyone in this book has their issues and a ton of things I don't like about them. But Declan takes the cake for being the worst, at least to me.

I can't wait to get into the next one to see what unfolds.

Content Warnings