Cruel King: Special Edition Print (Royal Elite Special Edition)

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You can either love one of the options and hate the other and vice versa, but as far as this particular book is concerned, it was about Nicole doing what she thought was best for her. I loved the mystery and suspense element of the plot as well, it left me guessing right to the very end! She loved only Daniel. She had a traumatizing sexual experience — rape, to which every woman might have a different reaction and her own special modus operandi. When I tried to defend this book from all the pre-release hatred a few weeks ago, I didn't seriously expect to enjoy it as much as I did at the end of the day. 🤡✌🏻 If you enjoy bully romance, as I do, you know eventually what will happen; the bully falls in love with the person they are tormenting. It’s inevitable, especially in the case of Levi King, when he starts to hang out and learn more about Astrid Clifford. You would think I would be bored of the same storyline regarding bully romances, but I enjoy reading how the bully falls for the girl and how he ends up becoming her savior at one point in the story. I crave these types of stories.

thnx to Hala for waiting an entire 8 hours for me to finish my exams and get home so we could read together hehe, I wouldn't have had as much fun as I did without you! I can't wait to continue our tradition and finish the series in may with aspenkingsley 🤍 Also not this lawyer literally breaking every labour law in existence😩. Nicole I love you. You're a smart, independent woman, a girlboss in her own right, but bitch you could've sued his ass so easily and saved yourself the hassle.Daniels manwhorish ways in the past didn't bother me, he didn't have sex with OW after he sleeps with Nicole however there are 2 moments: Rina managed to convey so heartbreakingly and potently the pain, the despair and the shattering loneliness Nicole had to experience on her own after Christopher (OM) had raped her. Look... I am completely and utterly aware I need therapy. WITH THAT SAID, this book reinforced this. I truly, honestly sat there half the book believing I could change Levi. I thought because I understand what it's like to have a father who has bipolar, I would be able to do it. Maybe I just need more frequent therapy sessions instead.

Favorite Quote(s): “Those who don’t play chess think the king is the strongest piece because the game ends when he dies, but they don’t stop to think that if the queen dies first, the king doesn’t have a chance to survive.”

Would I recommend this book? Yes. If you enjoy New Adult Romances with the bully and hate-to-love/enemies-to-lovers tropes, this book/series may be for you. What I love the most about this book is how it was written! I tend to struggle with reading the first few chapters of books as it normally starts with world building and not too much dialogue. However, the book has me so invested by the first chapter. And I don’t know if the sentences (descriptors? IDK!) at the start of the book are related to poetry or her other works, but I LOVED reading them before the start of the chapters because it had me anticipating exactly what would happen in the upcoming chapters. It would also be useful if you were trying to determine which chapter to stop on before going to bed (not that I ever did as I literally started reading after work at 10p and read til 6a 😮‍💨) but I digress. All the other characters apart from Daniel were a joy. Oh no wait that's a lie, Astrid was in this book. For those who don't know Astrid is the heroine of Cruel King, a book I rather aggressively dnfed😬. I am rethinking my decision now tho, I wouldn't be opposed to finishing it just to see Nicole bully the living shit out of Astrid. Genre/SubGenre(s)/Trope(s)/Element(s): Romance. YA/NA Romance. Bully Romance. Hate to Love. Enemies to Love. Sports Romance. Soccer/Football Romance. Athlete/Football/Soccer Player MMC.

Both Daniel and Nicole didn't have any obligation to stay faithful to each other, they were never officially together in the first place. Today, women are supposed to explore their sexuality freely, but somehow I often come across female readers who despise "dumb virgins" in books (as if intellect had any correlation to the state of a woman's vagina 🤡) and even expect women to behave like fictional mamwhores (it's a valid preference but no so much valid a demand). Also, I happen to have read quite a few books where virgins are obsessed with "getting rid of it" (my least fav trope too) not because they feel like the time has come and they actually want a new experience but rather because they experience peer pressure and believe that they are already "too old" and keeping their v-cards somehow equates to being pathetic losers. Daniel shutting the door in her face. Astrid assuming that she was having consensual sex with Christopher and not coming to her rescue. The subsequent family drama that ensued shortly afterwards.Your opinion on the location of my sexual encounters ranks with the importance of the Queen of England's involvement in national affairs, Danny. Do you know the feeling of wanting to read the book as slow as humanly possible just to savor every grain of the reading experience? Daniel's erroneous assumptions (both in the past and in the present) turned his each and every interaction with Nicole into such an intense and emotional battle of wills between the almighty queen and the dirt on her shoes that my eyes were literally obsessed with watching them both come up with toxic insults for each other. Nicole doesn’t take the bait, her eyes continuing to drill holes in my face and communicate something that should’ve been extinguished with the Nazis. My taste in fictional men is truly legendary too, and while Daniel isn't the type I'd normally fall for, I enjoyed his primitive thought process and clueless personality. 🥺

Daniel first caught Nicole's eye at age 8 and ever since then her obsession with him began to fester and grow, but he thinks she's a mean bully, especially to his best friend Astrid, Nicole's step-sister. When they're 18, Nicole pours Ecstacy in shots for herself and Daniel at a party but, he snatches the drinks out of her hands and drinks it and later in a horny Ecstacy-filled haze, takes Nicole's virginity. I’m disoriented by the time his thumb wipes beneath my eye. Then he rubs them, his thumb and my tears, against his forefinger. But it’s not the gesture that makes me pause. It’s the fascination in his gaze, the way he looks like a researcher who just made a discovery. With a lot of side characters. And though we don’t see as much of them as we do of Astrid and Levi–and we don’t get their point of view–they all have their own agenda that doesn’t revolve around the main couple, and it was interesting. I wanted to know more about Astrid’s father, about her best friend, about the rest of the football team. They aren’t just here to move the romance forward. Even though some of them were really of the villain-y kind, with little to no nuance.

This book is a melody. I didn't just read it. I felt it. I experienced it. I inhaled it. I devoured it. She's known to write unapologetic anti-heroes and villains because she often fell in love with men no one roots for. Her books are sprinkled with a touch of darkness, a pinch of angst, and an unhealthy dose of intensity. I think that worse than pain is the pain you have to go through alone. Unnoticed. Unheard. Unseen. Unsoothed.