A review by liz21
Broken Bonds by J. Bree

dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I enjoyed some of the characters (Gryphon, Sage, Atlas, mostly Oli), but Gabe, North, and especially Nox were vile. I must preface this as saying that I don’t normally read dark romance, so maybe you’d be fine with this, but there’s a lot of things that are big no-nos for me in fiction and naturally in real life too. I like some of the characters well enough that I’m possibly interested in reading more, but ultimately feel like something Nox did. 

Trigger and spoiler warning****
SpoilerNox rapes Oli but I’m getting a vibe that they might just brush it off as “she wanted it because she came,” which is horrible. Idk if that’s a normal dark fantasy / dark romance thing, but it’s not cool to paint it as something she didn’t want, but it’s “not really rape” because she didn’t—and couldn’t—say no in the moment despite saying no many, many times throughout the course of the book.
 

Ultimately, I’m still trying to decide if I want to read on because Gryphon’s character especially was really wonderful, as was Atlas, but I’m just struggling with Nox a lot. 
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