✨Im Literary Anxious✨

𝗘𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲🕒: 2 minutes

𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿: Navessa Allen✍🏻 𝗣𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 384 📖

THE QUICK AND DIRTY

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀: ⭐⭐⭐
𝗦𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗲: 🌶️🌶️🌶️.5
𝗔𝗴𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝗽: 10 years (Her 35, Him 25)
𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁: Standalone 
𝗘𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲: HAE
𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲: Dual POV

TROPES

💚Enemies-to-lovers
♠️Forced proximity
💚Fake dating
♣️Morally grey MMC
💚Black cat FMC
♠️Revenge
💚He Blackmails Her

“𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙣𝙤𝙬? 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙚𝙣. 𝙐𝙣𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮, 𝙄 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 𝙢𝙮 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡.”

REVIEW

🚨𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗗🖐🏼 Before diving in, know this review has spoilers. The rant demanded it be so. If you’re good with that, then please proceed.🚨

I had high hopes for this one, but… it barely scrapes three stars for me.

Let’s break this down.

Tyler (who spends 90% of the book going by Theo) has major daddy issues and a revenge plan. Stella is a goth tattoo artist with a wealthy background, except her life went sideways thanks to a terrible friend, and now she’s using her inheritance to cover someone else’s medical bills.

Enter Tyler, who blackmails Stella into helping him infiltrate wealthy society so he can get close to his father—the man he believes abandoned him—and ruin him.

Here’s the problem.

He meets his dad… and the man is genuinely nice. Like, objectively decent. Even Tyler acknowledges this.

And yet—does he pause? Reflect? Question literally anything?

Nope. Full steam ahead on a revenge plan that, by the way, I still don’t fully understand and somehow was supposed to completely ruin this man’s life.

Spoiler: the dad might actually be the most decent character in the entire book. (AJ is a close second… which brings me to…)

The throuple.

Yes. There’s a throuple.

With AJ.

Who is barely in the book. We learn next to nothing about him. It honestly feels like he exists purely to give Tyler and Stella a reason to hook up, which is a shame because I actually liked him more than either of the main characters and would’ve loved to see him developed properly.

Now let’s talk about Tyler’s backstory.

He eventually learns that his mom lied to him and kept him from his father so he wouldn’t grow up “spoiled.”

Sir.

Your childhood involved food insecurity. For what??
That’s not character building—that’s neglect.

If anything, I was more frustrated on his behalf than he seemed to be.

As for the romance…

Outside of physical attraction, I didn’t feel much chemistry between Tyler and Stella. I didn’t dislike Stella, but nothing really made her stand out or pulled me in emotionally (except Amos, the parrot—true icon).

Tyler, on the other hand, is just… mean. Not in a fun enemies-to-lovers way. Like genuinely going for the jugular with no real payoff. I love enemies to lovers, but I need a believable transition—and this didn’t give me that.

That said, I hate that I had to agree with him during Stella’s defense of her brother.

Ma’am. He’s 20-something. He knows better.
You don’t accidentally drink and gamble away an entire inheritance.

Small highlight: Stella’s mom. Not a huge presence in the story, but her dry, sarcastic British energy? Loved her. Would absolutely hang out with her.

And the pacing?

All over the place. Things move along, and then suddenly at the 85–90% mark everything just explodes. Major reveals, rushed resolutions—and she doesn’t even find out Tyler’s real identity until the last ~12% of the book.

Overall, this had an interesting premise, but the execution, character dynamics, and pacing just didn’t come together in a way that worked for me.