2.5 stars out of 5.

I had relatively high expectations going into this book and I was sadly let down. I think when I compared the average rating on this book versus the rest of the books so far in this series, this one was rated the highest (don’t quote me on it if I happen to be wrong). I liked the first few chapters that I read on preview and I thought I would give this a chance. I am entirely over a hero in a romance novel who thinks he is hot **** and better than everyone else including the main heroine of the story. Oh, but wait, he had secretly had feelings for her all along? Big frigging whoop!

It started off good with Lavinia suddenly having no dowry whatsoever and her desperate for a wealthy husband to sweep her off her feet and make all her troubles disappear. She feels she has to propose to the only guy she sees as able to make that possible, her so called arch nemesis “Appalling Parth”. It doesn’t happen and he instead takes pity on her and tries to find her a rich enough husband himself. Then they accuse each other of being horrible and shallow to each other. Parth ends up having an almost fiancé from Italy, which was so out of the blue for me it’s not even funny.

That’s when I was kind of was out of it and not as much invested in the storyline anymore. You’re telling me that the main characters were always in love with each other, but he is still looking for a rich husband for her and he is engaged to someone who doesn’t seem all that interested in getting married again (rich widow). The whole finding Lavinia a husband leads to a Norwegian prince being interested in her, then the next minute he is basically never brought up again in the story. There were other things that were just stupid and random, like for example:

- The sex scene comes out of nowhere
- Parth was an asshole about her business with the fashion house and making her own money/dowry from it
- Lavinia’s mother’s opioid addiction
- Lavinia’s said mother got a gun and shot one of the side characters in the head
- Parth’s sorta Italian fiancé’s storyline was basically abandoned after half way through the book

The thing that upset me most in this book and why couldn’t give it more than a 2.5 star was because Parth continually undervalued what Lavinia enjoyed and was good at the most (designing clothes for the wedding party). He was such an alpha asshole about the whole thing and it felt that there wasn’t a clear reason was he was so against it. She kept on stating that he was being disrespectful and rude about it for no reason. It felt like there was no development from his irrational opinion until the very end when he was going to lose Lavinia for good.

Also, they focused a lot on Lavinia finally finding her passion of designing and making clothes for people, that I felt they should have delved more into Parth’s business (his banking empire) that was mentioned a few times, but never really explored more than surface level (his vast wealth). That would have gone a long ways in my books with improving his various character flaws.

This is one of those books where I just don’t see what the heroine of the story sees in him to continue on in their relationship. I started off enjoying this, but more and more with the main hero’s storyline and overall characterization just put me off completely. I was honestly debating whether or not I should continue on after about page 160 something. If I was Lavinia, I would have gone to Norway to marry the prince instead, at least he would have been a lot nicer to her !

Born to Be Wilde - Likewise Book Reviews

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