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A review by edresa
Tragic Beauty by Iris Ann Hunter
1.0
Worst book I've ever read since Handbook of Mortals.
Did a lot of telling instead of showing. Failure to write about abuse, obsession, BDSM, rape, depression, trauma, abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, manipulation. Sht, every-fvcking-thing. It's like a book written with every possible trigger topics just for the sake of being edgy and dark, which like I've said, it failed miserably to do so. I've read my fair I share of even far more disturbing, messed up, fvcked up sht but none of them is as bad as this. This book is just trying so hard. There's even a chapter where a whole paragraph from another chapter was lifted and copy pasted as a means of flashback (because we don't get enough of those reminiscing moments) to increase the word count.
The female main character has no personalty other than being so insanely gorgeous men just couldn't help themselves but go crazy over her and do bad things because of her or for her. She looks like a child, she has that Lolita allure with her youthful appearance and stature but with curves at the right places, and that right there just borders on pedophilia when it comes to the male characters who get aroused by those attributes of her. I swear this book just vomited out all sensitive topics without much of a development on the plot nor the characters. One of the male main characters lived in the shadows of the other one and we got his point of view even though he's not present most of the story. His chapters are just retelling of what the readers already know through the female MC's POV and doesn't really add that much to the progression of the plot. Yeah, his POVs are during essential moments of the story but the other male main character didn't get sht and he's pretty much the one who carried the whole lot behind his back imho despite his unnecessarily long but dramatic (eye roll) monologues. He's my favorite character even though he's also the worst character of the book and that is because he has shown the most depth and development (no matter how it steers to the darker side, it's still development in my book) even though his lines, like I've said, consists mostly of lengthy paragraphs expositions that the chapters just have too much of and too tiresome to read for me to enjoy. This book is also filled with, "Remember that time... blah, blah, blah... and I did that and you did that, didn't you?" IT'S FVCKING FULL OF EXPOSITION.
Does this book even have an editor? Because there are a lot of grammatical errors here and there and it's forgivable if you're reading from one of those free apps that you have to wait for a day or two for the next episode to unlock like Galatea or Dreame, I'll let it even slide when I read from Wattpad, because authors there are just starting out and they don't have the means or a team of people like proof readers or, I don't know, EDITORS, to work with them. And those are free platforms where their works are free and they can let their imaginations run wild and crazy, no shame in that at all. But this book. IT'S FOR PURCHASE. I FVCKING PAID FOR THIS BOOK. IT HAS A PUBLISHER AND SHT. It feels like a self published book. I would've understood if that's the case. I'd have let it slip and been easy on it. But the author is not some aspiring writer trying to figure out her style and needs a little bit more practice. The author of this book is a published author with a whole team behind her. Don't tell the emperor his new clothes rock just to get quick profit. You're doing nothing but feeding into his ego. Some of the books from those free platforms are undeniably much better than this one. And that ending? Is the author friends with Lani Sarem?
Dark romance has always been such a pufferfish genre for me and there are only a few done right I found myself enjoying. If you're looking for a good dark romance novel, check out K. Webster, Jordan Silver, Penelope Douglas, Ann Rice. Tragic Beauty is the first dark romance novel that I didn't like and I'm glad it's not the first one of the genre I've read or else I would've hates dark romance all together and miss out on such a great experience. Not quite as bad as Handbook for Mortals, that's takes the cake of the worst book I've ever read in my life, but still not worth your time not your money. And ohmygod it has a freaking sequel. This book has a continuation and dam it if I read it. I probably will because let's face it even with begging they'd still publish it and just to get full closure and I like to torment myself like that. Oh oh just an idea. Instead of Tragic Beauty the title of this book should be Torture Porn!
Did a lot of telling instead of showing. Failure to write about abuse, obsession, BDSM, rape, depression, trauma, abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, manipulation. Sht, every-fvcking-thing. It's like a book written with every possible trigger topics just for the sake of being edgy and dark, which like I've said, it failed miserably to do so. I've read my fair I share of even far more disturbing, messed up, fvcked up sht but none of them is as bad as this. This book is just trying so hard. There's even a chapter where a whole paragraph from another chapter was lifted and copy pasted as a means of flashback (because we don't get enough of those reminiscing moments) to increase the word count.
The female main character has no personalty other than being so insanely gorgeous men just couldn't help themselves but go crazy over her and do bad things because of her or for her. She looks like a child, she has that Lolita allure with her youthful appearance and stature but with curves at the right places, and that right there just borders on pedophilia when it comes to the male characters who get aroused by those attributes of her. I swear this book just vomited out all sensitive topics without much of a development on the plot nor the characters. One of the male main characters lived in the shadows of the other one and we got his point of view even though he's not present most of the story. His chapters are just retelling of what the readers already know through the female MC's POV and doesn't really add that much to the progression of the plot. Yeah, his POVs are during essential moments of the story but the other male main character didn't get sht and he's pretty much the one who carried the whole lot behind his back imho despite his unnecessarily long but dramatic (eye roll) monologues. He's my favorite character even though he's also the worst character of the book and that is because he has shown the most depth and development (no matter how it steers to the darker side, it's still development in my book) even though his lines, like I've said, consists mostly of lengthy paragraphs expositions that the chapters just have too much of and too tiresome to read for me to enjoy. This book is also filled with, "Remember that time... blah, blah, blah... and I did that and you did that, didn't you?" IT'S FVCKING FULL OF EXPOSITION.
Does this book even have an editor? Because there are a lot of grammatical errors here and there and it's forgivable if you're reading from one of those free apps that you have to wait for a day or two for the next episode to unlock like Galatea or Dreame, I'll let it even slide when I read from Wattpad, because authors there are just starting out and they don't have the means or a team of people like proof readers or, I don't know, EDITORS, to work with them. And those are free platforms where their works are free and they can let their imaginations run wild and crazy, no shame in that at all. But this book. IT'S FOR PURCHASE. I FVCKING PAID FOR THIS BOOK. IT HAS A PUBLISHER AND SHT. It feels like a self published book. I would've understood if that's the case. I'd have let it slip and been easy on it. But the author is not some aspiring writer trying to figure out her style and needs a little bit more practice. The author of this book is a published author with a whole team behind her. Don't tell the emperor his new clothes rock just to get quick profit. You're doing nothing but feeding into his ego. Some of the books from those free platforms are undeniably much better than this one. And that ending? Is the author friends with Lani Sarem?
Dark romance has always been such a pufferfish genre for me and there are only a few done right I found myself enjoying. If you're looking for a good dark romance novel, check out K. Webster, Jordan Silver, Penelope Douglas, Ann Rice. Tragic Beauty is the first dark romance novel that I didn't like and I'm glad it's not the first one of the genre I've read or else I would've hates dark romance all together and miss out on such a great experience. Not quite as bad as Handbook for Mortals, that's takes the cake of the worst book I've ever read in my life, but still not worth your time not your money. And ohmygod it has a freaking sequel. This book has a continuation and dam it if I read it. I probably will because let's face it even with begging they'd still publish it and just to get full closure and I like to torment myself like that. Oh oh just an idea. Instead of Tragic Beauty the title of this book should be Torture Porn!