My rating: 4/5 stars
I’m still debating the rating, but here we go… Ana Huang is a new author for me, and after seeing this series all over Bookstagram, I’ve decided to give it a chance. After reading it, I can’t say it blew my mind, but it was not bad. It was a catchy read, but predictable, with characters that I was not head over heels about.
Alex Volkov is a man on a mission and he will stop at nothing to gain his revenge. After seeing his family being murdered in front of him, he spends all of his money and time to catch the criminals and end them. He develops practically an empire and will dedicate his life to this goal. People consider him a genius, with a born gift, but his heart is cold, never with the possibility of being taken by. Ava Chen is a girl who believes in love and HEA. She is the epitome of happiness and cheerful energy, being the opposite of Alex’s coldness and demeanor. She is full of life, emotional, and just a ray of sunshine for everybody who knows her.
The 2 of them had very interesting chemistry, morel like a slow burn, but to me, it was not something sparky and WOW. I think my problem was Alex, more than Ava. Alex was extremely cold and besides that, the author gave him some trademarks which were not relatable at all. He was super smart, a genius who has a weird form of memory which made him remember EVERYTHING up to minor details, he knew every living soul in the Universe and besides that, was loaded. I understand that Alex needed to look cool, but when you transform him into Superman, it doesn’t work for me… With Ava, I was not getting along at first, but I began to like her from 60% up. I like heroines who can be vulnerable and emotional but develop afterward into something more. I believe that Ava had a good story and development and I really enjoyed seeing her make Alex work big time for them. It was super satisfying.
And I forgot, their romantic scenes were a little cringe for me and the way Alex talked was very turn-off in my case. I can’t say I enjoyed those particular scenes and that was a reason I lowered the ranking.
Why 4 stars then? Because the book overall, was good. The plot developed well and has some intriguing elements, ones predictable, ones not so much. I think I enjoyed more the last 40% of the book than the first part of it and I wanted to see how things go. It blends Romance with some more raw elements like trauma, violence, murder, and PTSD, things that make sense once you put them together. It was not fantastic, but it made me curious enough to read it until the end with considerable speed.
Ramonisme 