This is THE last time I take book recommendations from the TikTok girlies. This was… not good.
Honestly, I should have known that this wasn’t going to be for me after I clocked L.J. Shen’s name on the cover. I tried and failed to finish an ARC of The Kiss Thief years ago and I did not realise this was yet another one of her alpha male reluctant marriage novels with a dynamic that could definitely be described as abusive. I thought this was going to be a revenge thriller so the disappointment was real.
Nevertheless, I persisted because mama didn’t raise a quitter. It’s a decision that I am now living to regret because I now need bleach for my eyes.
There is definitely a target audience for this, but Wattpad-esque romance novels with controlling billionaire male leads with daddy issues are just not my thing. To me, there’s nothing remotely sexy or spicy about My Dark Romeo. Respectfully, the writing is cringe.
Cages aren’t made of bars. They’re made of thoughts, expectations, and fear.
There’s something so juvenile and try-hard about My Dark Romeo. Both characters are irritating. Dallas is a chronically online pick-me who thinks she’s sardonic and sexy. She’s neither. Romeo is not the brooding, tough Christian Grey copy that the authors want him to be. He’s a big baby and should probably be in jail. I don’t think any of the characters in My Dark Romeo are likeable… maybe the gardener? Although, don’t get me started on the Beauty and the Beast rose symbolism that the authors tried to shoehorn in.
I’m too old and tired for overblown stories like this. In the last act of the novel, the authors injected in a robbery in which wannabe gangster Romeo gets injured protecting the woman he loathes, Dallas comes down with pneumonia which in turn warms Romeo’s cold heart and Romeo gets poisoned by some other billionaire trying to take him down.
I cannot tell you how many times I was close to giving up. Part of me wondered, ‘Is this satire?’ because surely, the authors cannot be serious. There was even a knock-off Harry Potter in this universe that, of course, our main female character is obsessed with because OMG POP CULTURE REFERENCES!! I may have lost braincells in the process of struggling through this.
Look, I love an enemies-to-lovers as much as the next girl but My Dark Romeo is insipid. There are AO3 authors who have executed this trope and dark romance in general in a far more sophisticated and zesty manner. This is just not it. The fact that it is also 400+ pages is a crime in itself. It has no business taking up so much of my time for so little pay off.
I have nothing else to say except that it was gross. God bless.
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