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A review by ihateprozac
Cruel by Trisha Wolfe
3.0
This was a highly anticipated indie release for me, but sadly it fell flat.
I've read and adored a few of Trisha Wolfe's works but I was not a fan of the writing here. Both characters are pretentious as hell and convinced that they're the masters of their respective crafts, and it was so tedious to read. There's only so much self-aggrandising, self-congratulatory word vomit I can read before I want to throw the book across the room.
(Also, given this book's publication was pushed back so far, I was astounded to see so many typos and errors in the Kindle book.....)
I liked the concept of the female protagonist working as revenge-for-hire, but I wish we'd got to see more of this! I also wish that Trisha Wolfe had gone harder on the Alice in Wonderland motif and leaned into it as an over-the-top dark romance. The science angle had potential but something about its execution was lacking - perhaps if the book had been longer it would have been handled with more finesse.
And as for the romance? I'm conscious that this is a duology so I don't want to totally write it off, but when they finally got together it wasn't terribly steamy and was over super quickly. This felt like literary edging. ;___;
So yeah, 3 stars. I'm definitely picking up the second instalment but I'm keeping my expectations low. It's no [b:Born, Darkly|32758410|Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly Duet, #1)|Trisha Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1489062610l/32758410._SY75_.jpg|53349037], that's for sure.
I've read and adored a few of Trisha Wolfe's works but I was not a fan of the writing here. Both characters are pretentious as hell and convinced that they're the masters of their respective crafts, and it was so tedious to read. There's only so much self-aggrandising, self-congratulatory word vomit I can read before I want to throw the book across the room.
(Also, given this book's publication was pushed back so far, I was astounded to see so many typos and errors in the Kindle book.....)
I liked the concept of the female protagonist working as revenge-for-hire, but I wish we'd got to see more of this! I also wish that Trisha Wolfe had gone harder on the Alice in Wonderland motif and leaned into it as an over-the-top dark romance. The science angle had potential but something about its execution was lacking - perhaps if the book had been longer it would have been handled with more finesse.
And as for the romance? I'm conscious that this is a duology so I don't want to totally write it off, but when they finally got together it wasn't terribly steamy and was over super quickly. This felt like literary edging. ;___;
So yeah, 3 stars. I'm definitely picking up the second instalment but I'm keeping my expectations low. It's no [b:Born, Darkly|32758410|Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly Duet, #1)|Trisha Wolfe|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1489062610l/32758410._SY75_.jpg|53349037], that's for sure.