Fear You (Broken Love, #2) in Enemies-to-Lovers Recs

Jun 11, 2020 Twiggy rated it did not like it

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I totally hated this.

Keenan and Sheldon had been really interesting and sympathetically drawn characters in the first book and I had been keen to read what happened to them , despite struggling with the second half of the first book.

However it turned out that Keenan as a 22 year old was just horrible.

Kieran's character also starts the book with a homicidal bang that does not fit with how his character has appeared to develop in the past 4 years in terms of going to college and being nor Spoilers

I totally hated this.

Keenan and Sheldon had been really interesting and sympathetically drawn characters in the first book and I had been keen to read what happened to them , despite struggling with the second half of the first book.

However it turned out that Keenan as a 22 year old was just horrible.

Kieran's character also starts the book with a homicidal bang that does not fit with how his character has appeared to develop in the past 4 years in terms of going to college and being normal. there is the marginal involvement from the police who don't seem to be undertaking any active kidnapping investigation nor a homicide investigation when K kills the kidnappers gruesomly.

Keenan waltzed back into Sheldon's life after 4 years at a totally awful moment when her 3 year old has been kidnapped. He presents as psychotic with anger management issues and with a sense of entitled ownership over Shelley that has no bearing in rationality given the 4 year absence period. On multiple occasions the book veers into what I viewed as domestic abuse of the heroine. The male protagonist holds the the heroine over a balcony by her neck threatening to drop her, puts a knife to her throat and threatens to kill her on several occasions and tattooed her forcibly. He keeps her apart from her child and there are threats to take the child away. Funnily enough I didn't find any of this endearing.

Shelley's character had become a total door mat. She tolerated Keenan's treatment of her and just kept having more and more sex with him. She seemed to have no sense of self protection or how she deserved to be treated. She allowed Keenan around her child even when he was presenting as violently on edge. This was at total odds with the fact that she was portrayed at the start of the book as intelligent and cautious - she had just graduated from college, had been accepted to medical school in stanford and had been dating another guy for a year but had not introduced him to her daughter as she was cautious and wanted protect her child. There was no prospect of any court would transfer residence of her daughter to Keenan. The whole thing was really incongruous.

There was a quick end where Keenan makes good and the next we know they are engaged...

It was hard to view this as a happy ending for sheldon. ...more

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