Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsRead this just for the smut.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 4, 2022
If I could rate this solely on smut and step sibling kink I would easily give it a five. The smut in this book was just absolutely hot. I've never read about step siblings but I'm into it. That probably says something about me but oh well. This has kinda made me want to find more with this kink.
This book explores a lot of kinks and sexuality which I actually admire. I think it is super cool to have a sex club focused on exploring sex in a safe way, in a non judgment atmosphere. I mean, this book explores sex workers and their careers but in a positive light. The sex club allows people to practice any kind of sexual fetish they might have which includes voyeurs, group sex, different sex toys, dom/sub, etc. It covers a lot of bases.
But the actual story? It wasn't terrible but it wasn't anything special. It's just about Mia and Garrett exploring their sexual relationship and how to have a romantic one. I like the characters for the most part. I wasn't really interested in the other characters. I know their are other novels, this is the second one, but I'm just not interested in them.
The family dynamic felt weird. I didn't buy into them and certain things didn't quite line up. Garrett talks about how he can't stand Mia and avoids the family making it sound like he hasn't seen her in years. But it had only been a few months? And after his mom begs him to visit and he hangs up, blaming Mia, he then instantly calls Mia? Then towards the end, he talks about how he just wanted to be a good brother to Mia at first, he didn't want her to see his "ugly" side. But the whole beginning made it about how they just don't get along, they couldn't stand each other? It felt fake, honestly.
This also deals with mental health and suicidal situations. That did make the story a little more interesting but again, it didn't make a lot of sense. It isn't until the middle of the book you get more details and the mom talks about how Garrett struggles and his moods change and what not. But Garrett NEVER displays this. He doesn't even really mention it himself until later. It kind of felt like we added that to give him some depth but it wasn't fleshed out right.
I just couldn't give this a four star even though I really wanted to based on the sex alone. I will definitely revisit this for the smut scenes but never for the romance/story.
