Are y'all ready for a different side of me? No but seriously, I normally stick to posting about books I love, but I read a book that has been on my TBR forever and I had high hopes for it. I love the cover and I thought this would be a nice little spicy read. Little did I know this would be one of my most hated books. If you like this book, maybe skip my review? You've been warned.

Yeah umm no. Nope, nuh uh, 1 star. Where are the trigger warnings? I thought maybe it was just because I listened to the audiobook, but nope. I just checked the Kindle edition and there's none. From what I can tell there's none on the author's website either. There's sa, literal sa, in this supposedly spicy book, and that's the extent of the smut, a r* scene. F* this book.

Olli, our main character is insufferable. Constantly whining, complaining and unnecessarily using the word freaking every other sentence. She's 19 but acts like a child.

The book feels so repetitive and goes nowhere. The main character is supposedly super powerful and scary but has to hide it all away and can't tell her fated bonds a single word about any of it. They all treat each other horribly and even the one guy who's decent, I'm sitting here wondering when he's gonna flip. Toxic with a capital T all but the one.

The r* culture just being accepted and acceptable is beyond wild. The fact that Olli is sa'd and the author goes above and beyond to convince us and the characters that it wasn't actually sa makes me so mad. The author could have done something really good with that narrative and spoken to what a victim of sa goes through, but instead gaslights Olli, her bonds, and us.

Among other triggers is k*dnapping, emotional ab*se, physical ab*se, mis*gyny, g*slighting, t*rture, domestic ab*se, cl*ssism, false impr*sonment, conf*nement, v*ctim blaming, and probably a whole lot more I'm forgetting.

On the language side of things, "freaking" appears 179 times, "b*tch" 55 times, "f*ck" 466 times, "sh*t" 181 times, "a*shole" 62 times, "d*ck" 34 times, and "d*mn" 63 times.

Originally this was just meh, like a train wreck I couldn't look away from. I was alternating between 3 and 2 stars. After finding out there's no trigger warnings whatsoever, it's a 1 for me. This may just be my new hated book on the same level as Haunting Adeline. I picked up book 2 from Libby because apparently I like torturing myself. I thought it had to get better. We'd turn around the plot on the r*ist and do something about him, but no. She's just crying over her freaking leather boots she couldn't live without that she lost in book 1. Like what?

Olli is a total mean girl, not a girl's girl.

The only good thing going for this book is that the cover art is gorgeous. So maybe we should stop judging books by their covers. Smh. 

it was waaay to slow for me. basically all the action happens in the last fourth of the book. untill then it is lots of yearning, longing and backstory 

Every book but the last one ends in a cliffhanger. However, it feels like 1 book just divided into 6 parts which means no unnecessary summarizing of the previous books in the story.  I devoured each book within a week, which is why I recommend getting all the books at once if you hate cliffhangers.

The first two books are mainly told from Oli's perspective except in the second where we get a North Prologue. Every other book that follows is told from the various characters in the bonded group.

I found I wanted to know what the other characters were thinking a lot more than just hearing Oli's perspective since I'm so used to reading at least dual points of view or from the past and present within a story.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND CHECKING OUT THE TRIGGER WARNINGS I POSTED BECAUSE THEY WILL GIVE YOU A BETTER IDEA IF THIS BOOK SERIES IS FOR YOU. I RECOMMENDED A SIMILAR BOOK THAT'S YA (YOUNG ADULT) BUT STILL HAS ALL THE GREAT PLOTS THAT I ENJOYED IN THE BONDS THAT TIE WITHOUT ALL THE SUPER DARK INTENSE THEMES.

This book is a good example of poly rep but filled with horrid misogyny. Every part of this book is just the main character shitting on women for being feminine or pretty or interested in men. The main character just is just screaming internalized misogyny all over the book. Honest to God I almost didn’t finish the book because it was so misogynistic. I finished it because I like the poly concept, but I really really think that the author  
 is a “not like other girls” girl and that’s really disappointing to me.  Like the concept that you can write about a poly relationship yet you can’t think that other women who are  feminine are not shitty for being so. 

Oh this was a tricky one.

Things I liked:
- the writing (notwithstanding occasional typos)
- the mysterious setup... this feels like a pretty new take (maybe I just havent read the book series similar to this one?)
- Gryphon. Also Atlas. They seem like rounded people who think before they act. (The rest of the bonds are just insufferably childish, self-centered dudes)

Things I disliked
- he world-building. There is some info about what these bonds are and how they work, but why, when do you usually learn about your bonds, how do you find them (like, some people are "waiting to find" them? Also, seems like you can reject a bond, what happens then? How is power heightened or acquired when a bond is completed? So many questions, but not in a good "mystery we will uncover" way, but more a "causes confusion when reading" way. Also, what is the Resistance resisting against and why? No idea. But they seem to be the baddies for some reason?
- the FMC's naivité. Annoying as hell. I'm personally not a fan of mysteriously self-sacrificing characters, especially when it is then used to explain some shitty behavior without much context?
- description of FMC through the book. She seems to have a normal (or even hot) body in the beginning, enjoying her food, and as soon as she is forced to do more physical exercise the fact her clothes don't fit and are too big gets mentioned a lot. I find that annoying. 
- How old are the bonds? Like, all around same age, or some way older? Some are councilmen and uni professors, others students?

But overall... I read this quickly, and I was hooked. Spice is not happening here (0.5/5 for some drooling over hot bodies), but that's likely because this is setting up the series. Wished that I wasn't so confused half of the time when it comes to in-world politics, but hoping that things will clear up. 

Solid audiobook read if you can get over the constant use of f bombs and pseudo f bombs. The plot wasn’t too complicated to track while listening and crafting/multitasking. The writing isn’t great and I agree with other reviews that say there’s a lot of whining, but I don’t think it’s an issue. She’s 19 and got a lot crap going on. I find the story interesting and dramatic and will definitely keep going.