Review: Exhibition by Candace Wondrak

Exhibition by Candace Wondrak

Series: Voyeur #2

Publication date: January 1st, 2022

Pages: 327

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Synopsis:

The devil no longer rules the Dollhouse. I do.

The old me is long gone. The girl who used to pretend to be everything my parents wanted is dead. I thought finding my sister and my boyfriend together was life-changing, but it turns out getting shot is one hell of a wake-up call.

I need to go back to Hillcrest.

I need to see my family again... and my sister. To put them fully behind me, I need to show them the new me. And this new me? She's a bit of an exhibitionist. 

I like being owned. I like being controlled and put on display.

Lake caters to my good side, while Roman and Carter fuel the bad. All three make me feel alive, and together? Together we'll give my family one hell of a show.

They'll think their prodigal daughter has returned... but really, I'll only be there to fuck everything up, and I'll do it with a smile.

It's my turn to be bad.

Exhibition is a RH/Why Choose romance, recommended 18+for steamy content and swearing. This book is not dark per se; however Roman and Carter don't play nice with others. Expect some violence. Recommended to be read after Voyeur and the A Death so Sweet trilogy, as this book takes place after the events of both.

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Review:

Nothing makes all the unresolved issues from your past stand out in bold neon lights like having a brush with death. Zoey thought she could put the past behind her and carry on her life at the Dollhouse with her three boyfriends, but after getting shot she wanting nothing more than to completely sever ties with the people of her past and be able to start the journey into her new life without the shackles still holding her back. Thus comes the plan to go back to Hillcrest and shake things up for good. Make her parents write her off as a lost cause and her sister realize that she did her favor by sleeping with her boyfriend but not before she feels exactly what it felt like for Zoey. Her men are only too happy to help her on her mission even if they feel it may be a little silly in the long run. But that's the thing about love, you'll do the darnedest things for it. But when Zoey returns, will the skeletons of her past end up dragging her back under before she can exert her revenge?

This book was decent, albeit very much needed to be read after the Death So Sweet series. The shooting was never really described in this book as it happened in one of the other series books as a crossover. There were a lot of references that flew over my head even though I read the series a few years ago. I didn't like the lost feeling or not having that emotional connection to the characters I used to love from the previous series. It was hard to remember their stories and made me consider stopping and going back to the previous series to re-read. I like when series are all combined within one universe so we can check in on some of our previous characters, but I wish there was a list for Candace Wondrak that put all the books in timeline order so I knew what to read first. If I hadn't read the Death So Sweet series I would have been completely lost.

I felt bad for Wyatt. I kept waiting for him to show he was actually a bad guy all along to make up for the way Zoey treated him. I almost feel it would have been better if there had been a little bit of nefariousness from him to make the main female character less of a bitch for how she used him. I do kind of hope that Wondrak uses Wyatt in one of her future book series (I haven't checked to see if she did). It'd be a nice sort of prequel to him finding his own dynamic being as he seemed a lot more open to the multiple boyfriend thing than even Lake was at first.

I think that the book was good but it wasn't anything that I would rave about to friends on my various book reading Discord servers. It was adequate and a cute story. But I had a hard time wrapping my brain around why Zoey felt the need to go back to ruin her parents and sister's lives. Why not just forget them and live your life? That is what a normal person would do. But this is fiction so of course it doesn't go that way. I think if she had another more fundamental reason for it other than just emotional, I would have liked the book a lot more.

It was cute duology and I wouldn't skip it if you are reading Wondrak's books. It is a lot lighter than some of the others she has written.