This definitely going to be another "it's not me, it's you" review.

I don't know why but the bully romances I have been reading lately have been nothing but misses. They have promising premises like this one that gain my interest and end up being a huge disappointment in the end. The female lead is always drawn to where the filthy rich tend to send their heirs to learn how to take over their family business, but the boys are always these bad males who tend to either call the poor female lead names, demand she leave the school, and/or allow their female counterparts to do something that would ostracize her from the rest of the class. It is always the same premise of any and all bully romance harem novels.

The female lead is always supposed to be this badass female who is supposed to come in with guns blazing and force change upon the school. She forges friendships with the poor people because, you know, reasons. And though they warn her to stay away from those "Kings of nameless schools", she ignores them. They always smell like some sort of weird thing for her and they make her body cream itself whenever they are near or speak to her.

While I did try to read this book, I ended up skimming through about forty percent of it because the story and its characters felt uninteresting. The female lead and her bully males had nothing about them that offered to set them apart from other school bully novels. But in all honesty, these novels read the same except the story and characters are changed slightly to fit another narrative.

Final Thought:

Will I continue this series? No. I could find nothing about this novel that I believed would keep me interested in reading the second novel. So, any answers I had will die with this novel. ( )

Bullying, mean girls, dark secrets, outcast and a constant cloud of danger flow together to form a unique and grabbing read.

She's seventeen, lost her parents, and struggling to stay out of the grip of foster homes for just the last few months until her eighteenth birthday roles around. When a person appears at her doorstep and offers her a full-ride scholarship to an elite school, she's sure it's a scam or mistake until she finds herself in a car, twisting up the steep mountain road to the secluded institution. There, it immediately becomes clear that she's not really welcome among the rich students and even receives a room in what might have once been a dungeon for all of its warmth. The relentless and harsh bullying of the students and teachers along with strange happenings within the school, soon have her wondering if coming there was a big mistake.

When I picked this up, I wasn't sure what a 'bully' read might mean (except that it obviously had to do with bullying). I didn't realize there was a separate term for this type of read. The bullying is harsh but didn't cross the level of strong bullying in other teen novels. Rather, it was more relentless in these pages. The heroine, however, has a wonderful attitude and holds her own in an inspiring way. Still, readers who have trouble with this area might be bothered.

The story itself is very original in many ways. While the idea of a poor girl suddenly attending a wealthy school and in a strange setting might seem familiar, this plot takes some very interesting twists. The secrets and hints are masterfully woven into the scenes, and what first seems as a harsh, bullying read, slowly develops into so much more. The author sets creepy tones right away and allows these to grow as the tale mutates little by little. The end holds a huge surprise, making it a hard wait for book two to appear.

This is a reverse harem romance but a slow burn one. There are some quick elicit scenes, but not in the way a reader might expect. This is a very slow burn read, which considering the circumstances, has to be the case. There are light sparks but they are kept mostly at that level, allowing the other aspects of the tale to stay in the main focus. It will be interesting to see where the author goes with everything, since it's not a tale which can qualify as predictable. It's a great read for fans of dark struggles, strong determination and even darker secrets.

I received an ARC and enjoyed reading it quite a bit. So, I'm leaving my honest thoughts. ( )