Unfortunately, this book just wasn't well written. I liked the characters of Rebcca and Jack and their meet cute leading to incorrect assumptions about each other but the execution just wasn't there. First off this is not a romance, it's a literary fiction about two people stuck in their lives and making changes for the better and also being neighbors who are slightly attracted to each other. Second, these are two of the most miserable people I've ever had to read about. They never had anything good to say about their lives or other people in their lives. I think that the author's interpretation of actors was stereotypical and small minded, which is unfortunate for her having been an actor herselt. Thirdly, this entire story was just too drawn out. While it would've been nice to have in-depth looks into these characters lives, we saw too much for this to be a general romance. Overall, the story has good bones. I just wish the execution had been more like the author's previous book.

It is a shock to me that I enjoyed this so much!! In a good way, this reminded me of all the wattpad books I used to read as young teen and how griping those stories could be even if the actions in them were horrible. And believe me, what’s happened to the main character Auren is horrible! Although I didn’t love her ‘not like other girls’ attitude in the beginning, Auren really did grow on me especially as she wasn’t afraid to show her emotion while still being strong in the face of her adversity. There is nothing wrong with crying when you’ve literally been beaten down, as long as you get back up. I’d heard that this book was slow and yes that middle bit was incredibly slow but I think the pay off in the end was worth it! I didn’t love how crude the book was but this world is crude so it makes sense. This also heavily falls into some romantasy stereotypes but if you know that going in you can still enjoy this story. And enjoy it I did! Excited to read the next one!

What an interesting little story! I loved the themes of influence and "modern" vanity. There is so much satire in Lord Henry's character and so much trusting in Dorian's. Some reveals were shocking to me and some were less so but the story over all was very intriguing and Wilde threw in some great lines! The only reason this is getting a 4 instead of a 5 star rating is because I think there's a difference between flowery writing and just rambling on. Many times I would zone out half way through a paragraph and would zone back in at the end only to just continue reading because what was being discussed was not central to the story was only being used to flesh out more than was necessary. There is one chapter exactly like this and while I understand how important that chapter was to understand Dorian's character it didn't need to be that waffly. That being said, I still enjoyed this story and its themes and think it is a very important read today!