Thank you to K. Webster and her team for the advance reader copy of The Unruly, the fourth story set in The Wild universe and the follow-up to The Untamed.
I want to preface my review with a warning that one should check the trigger warnings before diving into not just this book but any book from the world of The Wild. I found this book incredibly intense and I want to warn people now that my being uncomfortable did affect my review.
I am a K. Webster review team member, but I remain honest and genuine in my reviews.
“They took everything from us.
Our home. Our family. Our freedom.
We’ve been forced on a trip from hell with people we hate.
With each step we take, we lose hope of ever making our way back home again.
These people have a wicked agenda.
We are their prey.
They’re brutal and cold.
Every person in their group has twisted delusions.
I need for my other brothers to rescue us and release us from our prison.
As time quickly passes, I realize no one is coming for us.
The only way we’ll escape is if we save ourselves.
I’ll have to be smart and calculating.
The timing needs to be just right.
When we make our great escape, I’ll finally be at liberty to explore the feelings I have for my brothers. Love, so pure and innocent, can’t be a bad thing.
Desperate. Starved. Agonizing. Desire.
The way I ache for my siblings doesn’t feel wrong.
I can no longer fight against these forbidden cravings.
We’ll love in secret and hope our parents don’t find out.
Because, if they do discover what we’ve done, it could mean banishment, or worse.
Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. We’re in this together.
Nothing will keep us apart ever again.
Our love is untamed.
And we are the unruly.”
Check out my more detailed thoughts below…
- This review will contain some spoilers for the previous book The Untamed.
- Characters: Ronan, Ryder, and Raegan are all put through individual trials in this book. I went through this book in a whiplash of caring for a character, feeling incredibly sometimes even sickenly bad about what was happening to them and other times I was so frustrated. There is miscommunication throughout so much of the book, and all I wanted was for one of the children to talk to their parents about the rumour Devon stirred up in the previous instalment. That being said if K. Webster writes more books in this world, especially about Rowdy and/or Destiny I will most likely pick it up as I was super invested in a lot of the side characters and the side plots of this one.
- Setting: The story is set in the Alaskan wilderness and for those who read The Untamed they will know this story opens with some of our characters kidnapped away from the homestead. Power to all of these peeps for making the best of it out in the woods, I could not do it.
- Pacing: K. Webster always nails some pretty dynamic pacing, but I did find myself almost rushing to finish this book rather than wanting to savour it. Granted the characters do spend a decent chunk in captivity and while I do not think that it took up too much of the story. It did compel me to speed through the first half or so. Based on my feelings and weariness around the tropes you may ask why I was compelled to say yes to this ARC, well simply the cliffhanger at the end of the last book had me dying to know what would happen next.
- Romance: I should preface this now with the kink this book explores is obviously not for me, but I gave it a chance because I have enjoyed countless K. Webster books in the past. I do even think The Wild is worth the read. This “romance” was a step too far and it wasn’t really even them being biological siblings that undid it for me, it was their lack of chemistry. The plot points for the relationship were way too predictable, and even once I figured out where Regan in particular would end up it just made me groan. I also want to mention that I understand completely why K. Webster depicted sexual assault scenes, the characters were kidnapped and someone would have been so disgustingly violated during that. What was jarring was reading about someone having sex for pleasure and then being sexually abused in the next scene, it was the whiplash that had me correctly uncomfortable for much of the story. This is a personal preference that I did not scenes so close together, and that when I am reading for fun there is only so much whiplash I can take.
The Unruly receives two out of five stars.
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Thank you again to K. Webster for the review opportunity. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
