A review by alejandra_guerrero
Lover Eternal by J.R. Ward

2.5

 I like the world, and I like the characters, but this one was… rough. The first time they had sex was after he had gone and screwed some random woman. She got mad and what does she do? have  some very angry sex, of course! And she apologizes to him! He doesn’t freaking explain, at this point he’s hiding a shit-ton of things from her, and of course doesn’t apologize. I definitely didn’t like that. It felt like cheating; even when they weren’t together, exactly, he’d already bonded and marked her at this point. 

The way she kept pushing him away was annoying. Her self-esteem was in hell and she should have been doing some therapy. I really disliked the way she hurt Raghe over and over, right until he goes and cheats. At that point I kinda disliked them both. 

He lost all his humor. He’s all sad, woe-is-me for the whole thing. He was kinda depressing. And how come he thinks whipping out Mary’s memories is a violation, but he didn’t give a shit about the others he did the same to? Yeah, real nice guy. Because he gave them orgasms it was cool, right? hell no! Fortunately, he stopped at some point, and the book at the end wasn’t really about him, or I wouldn’t have been able to finish. Bella and Zsadist kept me reading. 

The “Chosen” were problematic as well. Basically, they view themselves as unworthy because the Brotherhood isn’t using them. Literally. The whole vampire society is absurdly misogynistic.

There were so many side plots that Rhage and Mary took a back seat for a good chunk of the book. At some point they felt like secondary characters. And the whole Mr O shit was so unnecessary. I mean, did we have to spend several chapters reading how they chose a parcel to build and then watch them build their torture chamber? No, we didn’t, I skipped most of that and missed nothing. And the very few parts that were relevant should have been left for the next book, since all of it is some sort of context for Bella’s abduction, and she’s gonna have her book with Z. The world had zero development, and nothing really happens with the larger storyline. This could have easily been a novella. 

I can’t take the antagonists seriously. They seem pretty inept, and they keep getting killed left and right. 
And that ending! talk about convenience. And the way the Scribe Virgin pities her for not being able to have children was cringy. 

Overall it was entertaining. Junk-food reading, I heard someone call this kind of books.You know they’re bad, but you kept gobbling them up.