Review: Beast by A. Zavarelli

Beast by A. Zavarelli

Series: Twisted Ever After #1

Publication date: May 16th, 2017

Pages: 243

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

Once upon a time, I believed in fairytales.

But then he took me.

And he taught me that life isn't a fairytale.

He is scarred. Broken.

A dark and wild thing.

His beauty is violent and his words are cruel.

His heart is a shadowed landscape where nothing can grow.

He tells me he could never care for me, and he proves it every day.

He's destroyed my life.

Tortured me.

And worse...

He's trained me to beg for his affection.

This prison is a place where sunlight doesn't reach.

He taught me that hate is born in darkness.

And then he taught me that sometimes love is too.

*A standalone dark romance*

Available at:

Review:

This book is proof that you cannot judge a book by its cover. When I personally look at this book I think a softly contemporary book with a sweet love affair that may be destined for tumultuous waters but with a very happy ending to follow. What I don't expect is for there to be kidnapping and scenes that toe the line between assault and CNC (consent/non-consent). I was confused and blown away almost immediately into the 243 page read. And to think, I almost listened to it on audiobook. I think it was a good call that I didn't because this is hedonistic dark romance that gets dangerously close to being splatterpunk level of darkness.

This book, while not grammatically well written, was an enigma. There were times when I was rolling my eyes at the obvious way that Javier manipulated her and toyed with her while she bought into it immediately. Then there were times when I was all but sniffling with how bad I felt for Isabella. The motives of Javier are never fully fleshed out. We reach a point in the book where it is obviously meant for a villain's monologue but it never comes. It is never fully explained. None of it makes a lick of sense in the end and the story has so many twists and turns I have no idea who is good anymore. A lot of it seemed like delusions but then the truth would be explained but then it would go back to the delusion being the reality after all. If a book is going to have that many twists and turns it needs to be exceedingly longer; perhaps even a series. This was too much all at once and it made me feel incredibly overstimulated in the end.

This was not a book that I closed at the end having a firm idea of how I wanted to rate it. I had to stew on it for a little while. I can't say it was something that, if given the choice, I would read again. I also don't think I would recommend it except as maybe a "I have no idea what happened, see if you can figure it out" sort of method. It needs to be gone over again with an editor for sure and I feel like Javier's Latin accent that was discussed, didn't come through until the end of the book. That made Javier feel a little disconnected for me.

I don't feel right giving the book a two star review because there were moments in the book where I was really sucked into the story but then it would turn and I would lose focus again. So I will remain in the middle of the road with this one. If anyone reads it and has some better theories as to what exactly I just read, please let me know. Also, make sure you go into it being well aware of the trigger warnings because it will shock ya even if you're pretty much immune to that sort of thing.