I thought my standards had lowered since I have been giving very high ratings this year,but nope: I just had a really lucky streak until last month. Anyway,this book sucks. I already said this and I'll say it again,this isn't dark romance,this is abuse. Kerian belongs in a jail,and this is coming from someone who loves reading gangster romance. He's just a psychopathic,rich brat; he may keep on stressing how he isn't taking any money from his parents,but he kept the car they gifted him and inherited his grandparents money so he surely ain't as fucking poor as he claims to be. All of his internal monologues are creepy,lots of crap like "I always get what I want","He's my property" and don't get me started on the whole dubious consent. The guy made clear that he wasn't going to let Zander go if he rejected his advances. Let's add lots of stalking(he's aware of it and doesn't even give a fuck under the excuse that "he's aware he's a psychopath"),possessiveness and vulgar display of violence on people who in most cases don't even deserve it. Let's take the random guy who was hanging out with Zander for example,Mr. "I don't do relationship" got jealous,stalked the guy and beat him up,leaving him half dead in a dark alley. The author had the audacity to try and make me believe the guy deserved it cause "he was buying drugs,drugs are bad", bro was just minding his business trying to get high 💀 And Kerian made it clear that he would have beat him up anyway cause he was too friendly with Zander. I read books with criminal characters who had way better morals than this mf. The guy is just evil for the sake of it,but ofc he has a magic dick or whatever,so Zander forgives him and "is only gay for him",how freaking much do i despise the "I'm straight for everyone,except you" troupe cause hell you don't need to label everything,but you sure af aren't straight if you like kissing men??? I would rather the guy saying he would rather not be labeled than saying this bs. Also, the writing style is too pretentious and overcomplicated for what's clearly toxic p*rn with a sorry attempt at plot. The first two chapters at least were funny from how absurd and kind of bad they were,but then Kerian became creepy. Too bad cause there were interesting side characters and Zander is kind of cute af,but it all goes to waste considering that apparently the side characters are only there so that Kerian can humiliate and treaten to fuck Zander in front of them. Again,characters can be unapologetically evil, but in this context it's all kinds of wrong. It's a mf sports romance,not a thriller. What annoys me the most is that they want me to think that such behavior is hot,nah man it's only edgy af 🫩