This book met and exceeded every single one of my expectations. Sloane and Xavier were delightful from the very first page, and got progressively more adorable. I’m gonna be thinking about these two for days. 💙💙 (It doesn’t hurt that they give off MAJOR Sydrian vibes, aka one of my absolute favorite fictional couples.)

The only thing that could’ve made this book better was a Kai and Isa wedding. IT WAS THE ONE THING I WANTED, ANA.

Okay, but seriously. We’ve seen Viv and Dante get married, Alé and Dom get divorced and remarried, but Kai and Isa’s wedding is off-page?? And we find out in the epilogue that said wedding was only weeks after this book’s main story ends?? RUDE. And, to top it off, we don’t even get to see Xavi and Sloane engaged. I feel denied!!! 🥲🥲

On another note, I won’t lie—I’m skeptical about the next book. I don’t know either Vuk or Ayana enough to care about them, and I feel like Vuk is such a strange choice for a lead. I knew we’d have to leave the squad eventually, given how long the series is going to be, but I just. I don’t know. I’m gonna need some convincing on this one.

One more thing. At the very end, Xavi mentions Alex discovered the saboteur’s identity but wouldn’t share it, and all we got was it’s someone from a mercenary group that’s targeting the wealthy. I’d bet my nonexistent money that it’s Roman, and we haven’t seen the last of him yet. 👀

Updated series ranking:

My Ana Huang holy trinity, which finally exists after this book: King of Pride, King of Sloth, Twisted Lies. 💜💙💚

I’m not gonna reread, I’m not gonna reread, I’m not gonna reread……

Representation:

I LOVED this book. I connect with the FMC so much and found her very relatable. It was so nice having the MMC genuinely be a good guy throughout the book, and even his early pitfalls were really because he cared too much. 
Ironically, the book is a little cliché which the FMC would, on her own, rip to pieces, but I loved that bit of irony. 
I also love how Ana Huang references characters from her other books as little Easter eggs, and those lovable characters are still around for us to enjoy.

I’ll be upfront and honest, so I need Ana to take a step back from publishing because this book wasn’t overall terrible, but it could’ve been better. More likeable than whatever the hell KOG was, but this genuinely just shows how her books are losing quality. There’s something lacking about Xavier & Sloane that I can’t point out despite all that hype last year. The number of loopholes here were just frustrating instead of giving a reader feelings of anticipation for the next book because I was more excited for the cameos. I’m also genuinely so sick of her books completely being marketed via tropes instead of having an actual plot. At this point it just feels poor and recycled that I can’t believe this is the same writer who gave us Twisted Series because as much as I dislike Alex, he and Ava actually had a story to tell.

I wish Ana all the best in writing, but taking a break isn’t so bad. Quality over quantity matters here and for a book advertised as NA Romance, this became a badly executed romcom. The characters were just so poorly developed that it felt dragging. Don’t even get me started on the smut because I’m not the only one who felt disappointed in King of Sloth.