What can I say about this one? It wasn't at all what I expected. This is my second Penelope Douglas book and I think this one was way deeper than the other. The book really focused on some serious family issues and trauma. I wasn't expecting any of that at all to be honest. However, I really loved the depth it gave the story. We see Tiernan slowly come into her own throughout the novel. It's a beautiful process watching her realize what she does and doesn't deserve out of life and those she cares for. I thought the relationships she had were a really interesting reflection of this. She had a first which made her feel safe and loved, something she didn't really get at home. She had a best friend who she logically knew made sense... and then she had the kindred spirit.

I really think all the relationship dynamics between Jake, Noah, Kaleb and Tiernan worked really well. It was amazing to see the various ways in which they all helped each other to grow. I really enjoyed that this one touched on real life issues and deep topics... the romance wasn't necessarily the sole focus and in fact took a while to come into play in the story. It was a story of healing for all of the characters and healing that happened in dramatically different ways. My biggest problem with this one is just felt so long. It seemed like for long stretches of book nothing was really happening. ( )

Man this book is a slope into madness.

The parents commit suicide because the Dad has cancer and decided it wasn't getting better and to go out on his own terms and the wife went with him because she had nothing to live for. Certainly not her child. The child had no idea about the cancer over the many years of treatment. Somehow they hid all of that treatment from her.

The father also hated his brother, Jake and yet leaves his daughter to Jake in the inheritance.

Tiernan sees her uncle and immediately thinks he's hot. He flirts with her then goes "just kidding, unless". My dude that's your niece!

He buys her a bag of candy in a candy store. Ah yes, candy from your creepy Uncle, good.

That's the first twenty-seven pages and we're off to a great start. The incest is not bothering me as much as her not being eighteen and this book focusing on her in highschool and such. It really wants us to remember she's a young teenage girl. Maybe she could have been twenty years old and this would read better.

Uncle Jake repeatedly can't decide if he wants to fuck her or throw her away. Nor his kids. Totally a healthy family. Most of them belong in prison and the ones who don't are still trying to get with their cousin/niece while she's still underage!

If she was in her twenties this would be so much more stomachable.

There's sexual assault and consent is thrown out of the window straight into hell. So Tieran trapped with these men gets violated and raped and blames herself and then emphasizes with the incest while partly encouraging it. Ew.

"They're my family. I was trapped with them, shit happened." Incest grooming shit ain't supposed to happen!

2 stars. Honestly it was so unrealistic I just laughed more than I got angry. ( )

spicy. taboo. cant stop thinking about ( )

I'm sorry but this was so fucking bad. The pseudo incest plot of this book is so ridiculously unnecessary that it's almost comical. At what point are we going to stop disguising these smutty books about rape and abuse as "taboo" or "spicy". Just say that your internalized misogyny is showing, babe. ( )

Noah deserved better. Like come on, they actually made sense together. Also, pretty angry about the predictability of what Mirai does in the epilogue. I think this one was wrapped up a little too neatly for my liking. ( )