Fear the Flames (Fear the Flames, #1)

plot? messy, rushed, and awkward world building? nonexistent pacing? we don’t know her ✨ fear of flames just didn’t work for me. the plot felt messy and rushed, and the worldbuilding was basically nonexistent. i honestly felt like i’d been dropped 100 pages into book two of a series and had to double check that this was actually book one. there was so little setup and context. as an audiobook listener, i had a really hard time picturing what was happening, which is rare for me and usually a sign that the writing just isn’t doing enough. the pacing was off, and i never felt connected to either main character. because of that, the enemies-to-lovers romance didn’t land at all. the banter felt forced, the flirting was cringey, and the spice felt random and out of place to the point that i skipped those scenes entirely. there was no believable buildup, no emotional tension, and no real sense of love between the characters. the fmc read very millennial in a not-great way. it felt like she was written to be trendy rather than a fully developed character. i felt like she had no personality. by the time the ending arrived, it felt both random and entirely predictable, clearly setting up future books without earning that payoff. overall, the book was way too long for how little actual plot it had and it relied heavily on trendy tropes without offering anything new. this one felt like a rough draft that needed a lot more work, and i won’t be continuing the series.