[ 566 ]

[katara]

Shunned by Steffanie Holmes

Series:
Kings of Miskatonic Prep #1

Genre:
Reverse Harem, Bully Romance, Contemporary, Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Dark, High School, Adult, Paranormal, Enemies to Lovers, Why Choose, Alpha Male, Academia, Smut, Erotica, Steamy Romance, Spicy Romance, Fiction, Book Series, First Person Point of View, Cliffhanger

Publication Date:
May 20, 2019

Pages Numbers:
266

Read Date:
November 16th, 2023

Date Finished:
November 17th, 2023

Rating:
.5/5

Blurb:

I should have kept my mouth shut.
I should have let them win.
Now the kings of the school are out for my blood,
... and they’re not the only ones.

The fire took everything.
My parents. My best friend. My life.

Now I have a second chance.
I only have to endure one year at this prestigious academy for rich snobs.
One year of being the charity case no one wanted.
One year of taunts and insults and bullying. Then I’m free.

But I didn’t count on Trey, Ayaz, and Quinn.
Arrogant, privileged, dangerous.
Drop-dead fucking gorgeous.
They want me gone.
They want me to suffer.
They’re determined to make my nightmares real.

Tough luck, bully boys – I won’t hide away.
I’m not afraid.
But maybe… I should be.

HP Lovecraft meets Cruel Intentions in this dark paranormal reverse harem bully romance. Warning: Not for the faint of heart – this story of three broken bad boys and the girl who stood her ground contains dark themes, crazed cultists, books bound in human skin, high-school drama, swoon-worthy sex, and potential triggers.

Review:

This definitely going to be another "it's not me, it's you" review.

I don't know why but the bully romances I have been reading lately have been nothing but misses. They have promising premises like this one that gain my interest and end up being a huge disappointment in the end. The female lead is always drawn to where the filthy rich tend to send their heirs to learn how to take over their family business, but the boys are always these bad males who tend to either call the poor female lead names, demand she leave the school, and/or allow their female counterparts to do something that would ostracize her from the rest of the class. It is always the same premise of any and all bully romance harem novels.

The female lead is always supposed to be this badass female who is supposed to come in with guns blazing and force change upon the school. She forges friendships with the poor people because, you know, reasons. And though they warn her to stay away from those "Kings of nameless schools", she ignores them. They always smell like some sort of weird thing for her and they make her body cream itself whenever they are near or speak to her.

While I did try to read this book, I ended up skimming through about forty percent of it because the story and its characters felt uninteresting. The female lead and her bully males had nothing about them that offered to set them apart from other school bully novels. But in all honesty, these novels read the same except the story and characters are changed slightly to fit another narrative.

Final Thought:

Will I continue this series? No. I could find nothing about this novel that I believed would keep me interested in reading the second novel. So, any answers I had will die with this novel.

Similar Books:

Marked by Ruby Vincent
The Ruthless Boys by C.M. Stunich
Savage Royals by Callie Rose