The Villain by L. J. Shen

Monday 21 December 2020


Release date: December 17th, 2020
Series: Boston Belles #2
Pages: 420
Genre: Romance


Cruel. Coldblooded. Hades in a Brioni suit.
Cillian Fitzpatrick has been dubbed every wicked thing on planet earth.
To the media, he is The Villain.
To me, he is the man who (reluctantly) saved my life.
Now I need him to do me another, small solid.
Bail me out of the mess my husband got me into.
What’s a hundred grand to one of the wealthiest men in America, anyway?
Only Cillian doesn’t hand out free favors.
The price for the money, it turns out, is my freedom.
Now I’m the eldest Fitzpatrick brother’s little toy.
To play, to mold, to break.
Too bad Cillian forgot one, tiny detail.
Persephone wasn’t only the goddess of spring; she was also the queen of death.
He thinks I’ll buckle under the weight of his mind games.
He is about to find out the most lethal poison is also the sweetest.


*
I'm giving this book 1 and a half star because it's slightly better than the first one in this series (seriously, The Hunter still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and he doesn't redeem himself in this book, either. If anything, he just comes out as stupider).

But this one ... didn't work for me for various reasons. And this is, by not any means, attack to the author or the book. I have nothing against the author. I'm just stating what didn't work for me because all those five-star reviews on Goodreads (that always come from the same people and all sound the same) were lying to me and I'm deeply disappointed. Again.
  • Romance book, but where's the romance? Most of the book, Persy and Cillian spend apart. When they're together, we only get stupid, childish bickering (from Persy mostly, because Cillian doesn't even bother with talking). Which brings me to my next point,
  • boring characters. Cillian is the most dry and plain person L.J. created. He has no personality whatsoever and I could compare him to a wall. He's there, but not really. Persy isn't any better, either.
  • BORING. The story was just ... boring. We didn't get much of Cillian and Persy moments, but we got a lot of Cillian and his enemy moments. I'm talking a lot. Most of the book was circling around him and his rivalry. Who the hell cares, really? And the big secret Cillian was hiding the whole book is laughable. I'm sorry, but what? Seriously?
  • Cliché. A damsel in distress meets the villain who saves her for something in return. A woman with no money gets in trouble and (because she's sensible and it's obvious she won't ask her friends for help lol), she goes to the man she's been hopelessly in love with and begs him to take her problems away. And because he needs a wife and an heir (yes, it's still happening in the 21st Century apparently), he marries her and saves them both. What a gentleman!
  • Is it Persephone or is it Emmabelle?! While Persy and Cillian's conversations were dry and boring, I rather enjoyed the conversations between him and Persy's sister, Emmabelle. She had a character and they had more connection in one little scene than Cillian and Persy had in the whole book. Also, there was this bullshit how 'Cillian doesn't directly look at the object of his interest' and that's the excuse he had for looking at Emmabelle so much instead of Persephone. Excuse me while I go and laugh my ass off. FYI, I wasn't rooting for any sister before reading this book (I didn't care enough about that), so I read the book with a completely open mind and had no preference. 
  • Character development who? I know. I know, okay. L.J. is known for her asshole characters who belittle the women, but they're super hot and rich, so they can totally do that and we'll easily forgive them amiright? Cillian is a major asshole for the major part of the book. And I'm talking about I'm on 85% of the book and he's STILL being an ass type of asshole. He's humiliating Persy and trying to embarrass her at every step she takes. He thinks of her as a naive child and just loves calling her slut in the intercourse. But at least he's hot and rich, right??? I should get used to the sexism this author involuntarily pushes on us with every book by creating a helpless character as a woman (no money, plain-looking, big heart) and a vile man who has it all - good looks, money and power and therefore, he can do whatever he pleases with the "love of his life".
  • Bad humour. It was obvious that the author was trying too hard to be funny. It didn't work. The jokes were bad, lame and ... surprisingly (or not) not funny. The humour was lame and Persy was just making me roll my eyes at her trying to be funny while she was bickering with Cillian. Awful and immature.
  • Quotes and proverbs thief. This comes as no surprise to most of you, I believe, because Shen is known for taking quotes and proverbs from the internet and claim them as hers and people praise her for that because they think she's, oh, so good with words. Yes, because she STOLE them. This is from this book: "Sam always says, a child who is not loved by his village will burn it down to feel its warmth," Sailor said quietly. If you take words other people said, I expect to give them credit. This is an African proverb. I Googled it.
  • Variety has left the chat. By now, I already figured out L.J.'s master plan: keep the same story in every book, just change the names of the characters. With Shen, I feel like I'm always reading the same book with different names. She sticks to the same theme, same concept, same drama, same personalities.
  • Persephone and Hades retelling? No. Absolutely not. Not even close. If I see people going around and saying that, I'm suing. Please don't. No.
With that being sad, I felt like I was reading Vicious all over again, but a little crappier version. I like variety in the books, not reading the same thing over and over again. I'm on the verge of giving up on this author if she won't start being more original and will start giving us something different from what we've read before.


L.J. Shen is USA Today and Washington Post bestselling author of contemporary romance books. She lives in California with her husband, son and lazy cat.
When she's not writing, she enjoys reading a good book with a glass of wine and catching up on her favorite HBO and Netflix shows.

Yeah, she's a badass like that.

Keep up with L.J. on all platforms:
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