Belladonna

3,75

I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would, considering I prefer to stay away from romance. The romantic scenes didn’t make me cringe, the spicy-ish scenes did not make me want to vomit. I liked the murder mystery story and the witchy gothic vibes. I was invested in clearing up who was involved with what and breezed through this book within a day, enjoying myself. If you look deeper into this book, I’m sure you can even find a few great metaphors as to dealing with death and grief.

But. I cannot say that I care for many of the characters here. The main character is too soft for me. Of course she goes through some development throughout the book, but it is entirely predictable. I like Sylas, and rooted for him to become her main love interest, but he was also quite cliched (guess what, I wouldn’t be able to resist the stereotypical mysterious handsome man either). Blythe piqued my interest in one particular scene, only to be a letdown in most others: “I know how society teaches us to be soft and dull and compliant, but you will not be any of those things, do you understand? Do not change the parts of yourself that you like to make others comfortable. Do not try to mold yourself to fit the standards someone else has set for us.” Through the lack of depth in most characters, the social critique that was attempted here kind of fell flat though.