✨Im Literary Anxious✨

𝗘𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲🕒: 3 minutes

𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿: Holly Monroe✍🏻 𝗣𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁: 368📖

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗤𝗨𝗜𝗖𝗞 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗗𝗜𝗥𝗧𝗬

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
𝗦𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗲: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝘁: Standalone
𝗘𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲: HEA
𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝘆𝗹𝗲: Multi POV

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗣𝗜𝗖𝗘

𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪

This is my second time reading 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱—my second time this year, actually—and my initial reaction remains the same:

Oof. This is a tough one.

Mind you, I love this story. Obviously. I’ve apparently decided once in a twelve-month period isn’t enough emotional turmoil for me.

But this book makes me feel so. Many. Fucking. Things.

I spent most of it bouncing between wanting to keep these men forever and wanting to shake them—Derrick, I’m looking especially hard in your direction. 👀

Because what Derrick did wasn’t okay.

I understand why he did it. I understand how something that started relatively innocently spiraled into something much bigger. I understand that he loves Ariana and never intended to hurt her.

But 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙞𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙩.

And Ariana’s anxiety and fears were completely valid. Honestly, I think she could’ve reacted far more strongly to everything that happened and still would’ve been justified. This wasn’t just an awkward misunderstanding she needed to get over. She spent years believing she knew one person intimately, only to discover there were pieces of three different men woven into that relationship. Hell, even Grant struggles with the mindfuck of looking at Ariana and realizing he’s basically a stranger to this woman he’s head over heels for.

That’s a lot for anyone.

For someone whose anxiety already makes major changes and unfamiliar situations difficult?

That’s fucking huge.

And that brings me to my biggest source of rage:

Fuck. That. Show.

Drew, Bradley, Bridget…

Nah.

I’m not buying it.

I know the story leaves enough ambiguity that you can question whether they genuinely cared about Ariana or were ultimately doing their jobs and chasing ratings. And there are moments where they show some humanity—like choosing not to share Ariana’s private letter with viewers, which even Past Nat begrudgingly noted was “oddly decent for reality TV.”

But when it comes down to it?

They still took a woman who was already struggling and turned some of the most emotionally devastating moments of her life into entertainment.

And yes. I know.

It’s reality TV.

Everyone willingly signs up to have their lives picked apart for public consumption. Manufactured drama and exploitation are practically part of the job description.

Apparently, though, capitalizing on someone’s anxiety is where I draw my imaginary reality-TV ethical line.

Who knew? 🤷🏻‍♀️

And then we get the audience reactions.

Oh, the audience reactions.

Watching strangers decide Ariana was overreacting because boo-hoo, you’re scent matched to three hot men made me want to crawl through my Kindle and start swinging (this is why I avoid the comments section on social media 😅).

Because that’s the whole fucking point.

From the outside, Ariana has won the omegaverse lottery.

But she doesn’t experience it from the outside.

She’s the one whose life changed overnight. She’s the one whose trust was broken. She’s the one who has to reconcile the person she thought she knew with three separate people. She’s the one who has to decide whether loving them means she can forgive what happened.

And one of my favorite little truths buried in this book sums it up perfectly:

Love does not equal forgiveness.

UGH.

Because despite ALL OF THIS…

I still love the romance. 😂

I love Ariana. I love Ivan and Grant. I even love Derrick while simultaneously wanting to put him in time-out and make him think about what he’s done.

I love watching Ariana find her footing with each of them individually and realizing that what she had with Sax wasn’t fake—it was just infinitely more complicated than she ever could’ve imagined.

And I love that this story doesn’t magically make Ariana’s anxiety disappear because she found her pack. Early on, she acknowledges that anxiety doesn’t care whether something makes logical sense, and that thread carries throughout the book.

So yeah.

Four stars.

Read twice in one year.

Clearly I love it.

Also clearly, I enjoy being angry.

And Drew, Bradley, and Bridget?