Title: Bloodstained Beauty
Author: Ella Fields
Release Date: November 5, 2018
★★
**Kindle Unlimited
Fresh out of college and headed straight for my dream job, I didn’t think things could get any better.
Then I met my dream man.
In an instant, my happy ever after had begun.
The life I’d stumbled into was beautiful, and the man I loved was perfect.
But perfection comes at a cost, and I’d slumbered through all the alarms.
Then I met my nightmare.
The man whose bright eyes held untamed darkness.
The man who disarmed me with his peculiar behavior.
The man whose cold, merciless hands shook me awake.
In an instant, questions started to dismantle my happy ever after.
But whoever said the truth would set you free was wrong.
It wasn’t going to repair the cracks in my naive heart.
It wasn’t going to caress my face with comforting hands and reassure me it was all just a dream.
No, the truth shoved me down a rabbit hole, and I landed in the lair of a real-life monster.
I feel like I need to preface this review by saying that I really, really don't think I was the target audience for this book and it really drove home, for me, why a blurb that tells you very little about the plot can ultimately lead to the wrong people picking it up. I've on a bit of a dark romance kick lately and so when I saw that Ella Fields, whose writing I've enjoyed in the past, had released one a couple of years ago I immediately threw it in my library, really interested to read it.
Something that became clear to me through the first maybe third of the book, as I found myself wanting to skip to the end before I continued at the beginning, was that not knowing what's going on isn't a feeling that works for me as a reader. This is obviously super subjective, but what I've really come away from with this book is that not only did the not knowing leave me with an anxious, uncomfortable feeling that made this a reading experience that I didn't enjoy, but it also meant that I read a book that I probably would have skipped had I known more about the plot going in. This book... was just not for me, but I think it will probably not be for a lot of people who might end up in the same position as myself.
Honestly, if this book had been sold to me as a thriller and the ending had reflected that genre rather than the romance genre, I think I would have thrown 4-5 stars at this book... but it wasn't. I think that the writing was good and the story was engaging and well plotted, but it also didn't end up being what it should have been and I think that was a round hole/square peg situation where writing decisions were made in service of a happy ending rather than a realistic or satisfying one. Honestly, if the book had ended exactly the same it had but was presented differently, I think this would have worked better.
If you don't want to be spoiled, I advise not reading past here because for me to really effectively review this book I can't stick to being vague.
So this book is about Jemima, a young woman fresh out of college starting her first teaching job who is incredibly naive and, in my opinion, a little too quick to accept things at face value in service of having a storybook happy ending. Honestly, I actually really liked the way Jem was written, even though I absolutely did not like her as a character. To be frank, I found her to be a starry eyed idiot whose penchant for ignorance in service of her dreams of fairy tales and happy endings was really consistent - not a likable character, but one who felt consistent and real.
In the beginning of the book, I honestly didn't know who the hero was going to be between the two men that Jem is romantically involved with throughout the book, but I can tell you that both of them are selfish, creepy and weirdly obsessed with her for no apparent reason. That's a big pet peeve of mine, if we're being honest, because even though I don't think Jem dips into Mary Sue territory I also don't think we were ever given any good reason that both of these men were obsessed with her.
At the beginning of the book, we see snippets of the whirlwind romance that Jemima and Miles go through, ending up with them engaged and living together within months of their meet cute. Soon, though, we start to see cracks and get clued into the fact that Miles is keeping secrets - and I think that part of it was really well paced and unraveled in a satisfying way for me.
We also meet Thomas, the father of one of Jemima's students, who is strange and... I think maybe the intention was for him to be enigmatic, but he really just seemed like a weirdo in a way that I didn't find the least bit intriguing. I think, for me, that if we're going to have an antihero or just a dark hero in general, there has to be something about him that draws you in, some depth that grabs you, but Thomas consistently made me feel uncomfortable for the entire book. And honestly, that is another testament to the skill of the author in crafting him as a character - because I absolutely should have felt uncomfortable about him. Another reason that, in my opinion, this should have been a thriller.
What I'm struggling with when it comes to this review is that as I think about it, it the writing was objectively good but I couldn't get on board with the idea that I was supposed to be happy or feel like the stupid girl who makes very bad decisions ends up in a happily ever after with a genuinely terrifying psychopath. It didn't feel happy or hopeful to me, it felt sad and creepy. And, again, had this been presented to me as NOT a happy end, but a sort of tragic one, I think the book would have been basically brilliant.
I don't know, I've obviously seen a lot of people who like this book, so maybe it's just really subjective. For me, I think Ella Fields has definite writing skills and, had this been presented to me differently, I think it would have nailed a 4 stars, but because it was sold as a dark romance I just can't do it. This is not romantic to me, there was no build of feelings that felt real or driven by human emotion... I just can't do it.
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