It absolutely pains me to say this, but this book was a huge disappointment. With “Divine Rivals” I was engrossed the whole way through, and I felt everything so deeply. With “Ruthless Vows” I was bored throughout most of the book, and I found myself wishing for it to be over, which is terrible, not only because nobody likes to read a boring book, but also because after loving the 1st book, I thought I’d love this one too.


PLOT:

The main problem with this book was definitely the world building and mythology. In the 1st book the whole thing with the gods and the war was very poorly explained, and very surface level, but I didn’t mind it because the main focus of the story was Iris and Roman’s romance. In this book, however, the author *tried* to expand on the mythos and actually insert those things into the story, and it simply did not work.

First of all, let’s talk about Dacre. His character made no sense at all. I don’t understand why a literal GOD was soooo worried about protecting some random teenage journalist. Anyone could write for him! Why was he so hellbent on having *Roman specifically* write his articles?? It just didn’t make sense to me, but whatever. What really got me was later in the book, when Dacre became obsessed with having Iris write for him. Like, WHY?????? Literally ANYONE can write for you!!! And if the problem was the fact that Iris was writing for the opposing side, Dacre could’ve literally just killed Iris and be done with the problem. That entire conflict just made no sense, and it was clearly just a very convenient way to keep Roman and Iris in the most interesting part of the conflict, while also not putting them in any real danger. 😐

Also, the fact that the big bad villain of this series only really shows up in the 2nd book, and isn’t even that threatening to our MCs (since he’s clearly hellbent on keeping 2 random teenagers alive for no damn reason) made this book even more unserious.

Overall, the mythology of this story was very irrelevant. The important things were explained, sure, but the magic, the war and the gods were mostly irrelevant to this story, which made it feel very hollow and rushed. I guess that’s what happens when you try to write about a big magical war in your 2nd book when you didn’t really lay a good foundation for that conflict in the 1st book. 🫤🫤🫤 Additionally, most of this book was really boring. Things only really pick up at around 70%. The rest of the book was kind of a snoozefest, ngl…


ROMANCE & CHARACTERS:

I hate to say this, but the romance in this book just didn’t hit. 😭💔 We start off with Roman having forgotten about Iris, which I thought would lead to some heart wrenching scenes, but it all fell flat. 😐

While Roman is with Dacre, him and Iris start writing to each other again, and Iris doesn’t immediately reveal that she’s his wife, because she doesn’t want to scare him off. I thought they’d keep writing to each other, and Roman would start falling for his new correspondent, and he’d start slowly remembering about Iris. And, on paper, that’s what happened. *HOWEVER*!!!! I just can’t ignore the fact that Roman literally says he was falling for Iris again through their letters, even though they’d only written to each other a handful of times (and most of their letters weren’t even that personal). I just……………… I don’t get it! I don’t understand how Rebecca Ross wrote a beautiful love story in the 1st book, where 2 people fall in love just through their words, but in the 2nd book she tries to do the exact same thing and she FAILS!!!!!! Why was Roman so obsessed with “E.” already??? Why was he falling in love after barely writing to her???? It just made no sense! And when he finally remembered about Iris it just…… didn’t HIT. 😭😭😭

While in book 1 we see them slowly learn more about each other’s innermost thoughts and dreams, in this book we just have a couple of letters (most of which had zero personal information, which means there’s no way they could fall for each other from those conversations). Afterwards, the romance is mostly just them being worried about each other (which like, fair enough, but it just wasn’t as beautiful and lyrical as book 1). There are also some scenes where they spend time together, which were sweet, but also felt kind of mediocre (especially the scene where they slept in Roman’s room – where there was ~only 1 bed~ 🙄 – and they just kept calling back to the fact that they both fit in it…… it felt so CHEAP! Especially when compared to the heart wrenching things they wrote to each other in book 1!).

I also really hated that the author had to make the characters dumb in order to move the story along. After Roman remembered everything, he kept writing to Iris, and he revealed a bunch of Dacre’s plans to her. He was basically a mole, which I liked. HOWEVER! Instead of burning Iris’s letters (to destroy the evidence of his betrayal) he just kept them??? And then OBVIOUSLY he was found out, because, duhhh! 🤦🏻‍♀️ Then Roman decided to keep Iris’s book, sneak her into his house (where the literal portal is!!!!), and they made out in the middle of the street, and had sex in the newspaper office…. And, once again, THEY WERE FOUND OUT!!! Like, OBVIOUSLY someone was gonna see y’all making out in public! The city was FILLED with Dacre’s soldiers, and Roman was in the middle of doing something Dacre asked him to do. Why would he assume he wasn’t being watched??? Fucking ridiculous! 🙄🙄🙄 I was SO TIRED of their stupidity! It was so clearly just a way to propel the story (while also doing some fanservice by having them sleep with each other) and I absolutely hated it. I HATE that the author made the MCs stupid just so they could be in more danger!

The SCs were mostly irrelevant. Attie was fine, and I appreciate that she actually had some role in the story. Tobias was useless; we didn’t know much about him, and I couldn’t give a damn about him (or his romance with Attie, for that matter). Marisol was barely in the book. Forest and Sarah were fine, but I didn’t care at all about them (

the only feeling I felt when they died was confusion – why didn’t they find a hiding place earlier, especially when they knew about the bombs several hours before everyone else???

). Attie’s family was laughably irrelevant. Aff….. whatever.


WRITING:

As I already mentioned, the world building was poor, the conflict wasn’t properly set up, the MCs acted in dumb ways, and the villain’s reasonings to keep the MCs alive were very wishy-washy, which just shows the author couldn’t properly write the story of this book. There were also a couple of typos, and SEVERAL formatting mistakes in this book. They weren’t egregious, but definitely worth mentioning.

The most disappointing part of this book was how lackluster the writing felt. The writing in “Divine Rivals” was absolutely gorgeous. I underlined soooo many quotes (about grief, about life, and, obviously, about Roman and Iris’s love for each other). The writing in this book was insanely mediocre when compared to book 1. There weren’t many beautiful, heart wrenching quotes, but the few times the author attempted to write some, they fell completely flat, as if the author was trying to be #deep and #poetic but failing miserably. It probably didn’t help that, as I already mentioned, Roman “fell in love” with Iris all over again in the span of like, 3 (not very personal) letters, and after that their moments felt very cheap and fanfic-y, but I digress.

Other things about the writing made this feel very cheap, like when the author said Roman has a “sharp jaw and chiseled cheekbones” (a descriptor I can’t take seriously any longer, and I’m BEGGING authors to leave that shit on Wattpad, PLEASE), or the quote “The sun was rising like a bloody yolk on the horizon” (?????? 🤨 I better see y’all giving Rebecca Ross the same heat you gave the author of “Lightlark” lmfao).

Overall, this book was a huge disappointment, and I’m truly devastated I didn’t adore it.