the internet slander is uncalled for first & foremost !! of both Her Holiness Rachel Reid’s writing ability but ALSO this book being mentioned as “skippable” in the series, which does scott & kip so dirty. justice for scott & kip!

i am of the camp that ep 3 in the Crave series is my least favorite but that has everything to do with my obsession w Ilya AND the acknowledgment Skip is one book in one episode vs one book in five episodes. that said, i obviously watched the series first but i feel like this book gave me SUCH a better picture of Kip as his own character. he is smooth & funny & HOT (and h*rny) where in the book his only focus is his lame job & his desire to get into grad school but w no passion for a subject?

anyway, scott and kip’s awkward & brief beginning to their incredible chemistry made me fall in LOVE with the books completely separate to the series. i adore the writing style.

4 stars bc i had seen a lot of people reference Reid’s writing as “not good” and that’s so unfair. i love her use of 3rd person voice and it feels like it pushes Scott and Kip to speak more. the smut & dirty talk is stellar & i love the variety 😋 my biggest criticism would be Kip’s jump into “ok nvm i can’t do this” is super quick or without much explanation. it felt like he was fine & then he wasn’t & the communication between them fell short for a little which pulled me out of the first 60% of the novel, but overall this was a MUCH better read & relationship than the vast majority of “hyped” romances now. i’m so pleased!

the cover got me and it got me good.

i really appreciated the storyline from a child of vietnamese immigrants & appreciated Ronny’s story of childhood through that lens. however, outside of her parent’s strife & her odd hunger, there wasn’t much to take away from this book. i loved the full circle of it all but can’t help feeling like the last 10 or so pages doesn’t make up for the rest of the book being rather longwinded.

this was way too damn long. the first nearly 400 PAGES (!!!) contained next to nothing except a fleeting trip as all the main characters ran from the ending of book 3. it was genuinely 350 pgs before Auren & Slade have any type of discussion about what transpired previously so that we could begin moving forward with the next monument or plot point.

i’m exhausted & about forced myself to finish - i’ve waited for months for these to be available at my library and the fifth is ready now but trying to read 700+ MORE PAGES if nothing happens i’ll … die. drown myself in gold. who cares. ugh.