Drawn into the allure of a powerful crime boss, an identity-less young woman discovers an unexpected connection with her, forcing them both to confront their past traumas and redefine their roles in a world of violence and deceit.
Contains 18+ Sapphic content and a decent amount of fluff, but also some murder, drugs and other illicit themes. (Mentions of rape and sex trafficking.)
Edit: Having read further ahead now to chapter 62, I've decided to bump my rating up to 4 stars. Many of my critiques remain the same. I feel that Kitten still takes much of the horrors a bit too in stride when compared to how we were first introduced to her. However, it would make sense that, over time, she would become desensitized. I think she gets to that desensitization a bit too quickly, but that's my own opinion. Kitten also has some very questionable takes about morality in some of the later chapters, but the character even admits that she might be a bit over-dramatic in her statements, so I'll give it a pass for self-awareness. I'll keep my original review below for those who still want to read my initial thoughts.
It's a good story, but it has varying pacing for MC growth. The review contains some spoilers for the early chapters. The story is written very well overall, from the dialogue to the prose and even the smutty scenes. The romantic scenes between our two main characters are very enjoyable, and even the side characters aren't just one note. The part of the story that bothers me comes from just my personal taste. At first, I was really interested in the main character's paranoia about being taken in by Alisha. It was a very nice touch, and I found it to be very realistic. It isn't every day someone just snatches up a homeless person off the street like a cat.
When the MC learns that Alisha is a crime boss, her suspicion rises even higher. However, Alisha hasn't done anything bad yet, so the MC decides to stick around a bit longer. That is until the MC starts to fall for her and feels she wouldn't be a good fit due to some personal self-confidence issues. At this point, to get my point across, I'll need to get into spoilers. Warning for the early chapters.
Kitten runs away and gets in trouble with some gangsters. The part that bothers me—again, this is entirely a personal thing, not a fault of the story itself—is that Kitten is able to return to Alisha after breaking free from the guys when Alisha draws a gun. The gangsters start to surrender, but Alisha kills one anyway and has the second one get castrated by her bodyguard.
It was absolutely horrifying. The guys were bad dudes, but even then, wow. The thing is, the author covers this slightly in the next chapter. Kitten has a very brief moment of recollection about what happened. In that very same chapter, Alisha returns home again from work with clothes she has to dispose of, showing she either killed someone again or did something very bad to them. Then Kitten shrugs it off, and it's hardly brought up again. Kitten starts to worry like a teenage girl again about her self-confidence issue and how she thinks she isn't pretty enough.
It just feels a little unrealistic to me, that is all. Kitten is shown in the early chapters to be very skittish and very scared; she is even scared about Alisha being a crime boss but is able to give her the benefit of the doubt since she has never seen her do something bad. But now she knows that Alisha isn't afraid to just off someone without hesitation and comes home disposing of bloodied clothes. Yes, Alisha said she wouldn't harm Kitten, but again, Alisha is a criminal. Who's to say she couldn't go back on her word? That thought alone, truth or not, is enough to set anyone's paranoia off. Yet that fear and anxiety Kitten had shown early on hardly comes back up, or when she does feel a tiny bit of that fear, it gets quickly replaced by "Whoa she's hot."
Again, all of this is my personal take. I haven't read the full story yet; I've only read the first chunk.
I feel I may have rambled a bit. So, I'll get to the point.
The issue isn't Alisha being a serial killer. The issue is Kitten's reaction to her being one, as well as Kitten's own reaction to death. Perhaps later on in the story, this will address this, but I feel something like this should be done early. It's really early. Maybe the chapter after that man was killed and the other castrated? Perhaps when Kitten and Alisha were lying in bed, and Alisha asked Kitten, "What's wrong?" rather than glossing over what had happened, the two could've had a deep conversation when Alisha mentioned, "You know why I had to do it?"The kitten could disagree with her, which would then lead to Alisha explaining in more detail why she did what she did. This not only shows Kitten as more human, but it also explains Alisha's intentions to the readers in a more natural way (even if her intentions are not morally right). It would also make an interesting split between the two characters' relationship.
Overall, I may read a bit more to see if these are brought up, but so far, it simply may not be my cup of tea. For anyone who has read this far, I would like to reiterate that the story is written well, and some people may like it. All of this was just my personal and moral opinion.
TL;DR: MC is a bit too horny-brained to the point that witnessing murder or knowing that her lover is a serial killer isn't enough to stop her from getting wet. Even though said MC was shown early on to be very skittish and paranoid from having lived on the streets.
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