So, recently I’ve fallen into the trap that is a Kindle. I’ve never really been a big fan of e-readers and prefer traditional paperback reading. But, when I was gifted a Kindle Paperwhite for a recent birthday, I decided it’d be perfect to read books that I may not want other people to see the cover of. For instance, My Dark Romeo written by L. J. Shen and Parker Huntington.
My Dark Romeo was a book that was heavily suggested to me by my Tiktok FYP and I was very weary to read. However, from time to time I’m interested in a little something spicy, so I decided to put my fears aside and dive right in. That would prove to be a mistake very early on.
After reading, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is some form of a Beauty and the Beast retelling. The main character, Dallas Townstead is a 21-year-old who is currently engaged to Madison Licht, the son of her father’s long-term business partner. The engagement is arranged and it’s well known that Madison isn’t staying faithful to their engagement in the meantime, regardless of the fact that Dallas is. In fact, she’s saving herself for him! Then, Romeo Costa enters the picture. He’s the rival of Madison Licht and has devised a plan to “ruin” Dallas–or her reputation– and take her as his own bride.
The two create quite the scandal together and end up in the second arranged engagement of the novel. They quickly grow to despise each other regardless of (or due to) their current situation. Dallas is brought straight to his house in Potomac, far away from her home in Georgia, and is immediately abandoned by her fiance who disappears to his private penthouse. She’s gifted a rose by the groundskeeper which begins losing petals throughout her stay symbolizing her and Romeo’s relationship. See how we’re in beauty and the beast territory here?
From there, Dallas and Romeo are thrown into all kinds of drama surrounding their very odd relationship, her ex-fiance, and his arm dealing company, The reader is asking one question: Will they ever have actual sex, or am I just going to keep reading the most absurd and impossible scenarios that I’m not even sure I can categorize as “hot”?
All in all, this book was extremely painful to read for a multitude of reasons. For starters, the main characters are insufferable. Dallas’s only wish in life is to become a mother, and she does absolutely nothing else. Sorry, she reads because she’s obsessed with books mainly a series that sounds highly similar to Harry Potter, but failed many classes while she was studying to get an English Lit degree which she obviously dropped as soon as she moved in with Romeo. She also has an unhealthy obsession with junk food, which her fiance makes notes of all the time, but somehow she maintains her petite frame and tiny waist even though she despises working out and eats multiple dinners a day. Besides her toddler-esk personality, she makes the dumbest–no not even questionable just flat-out dumbest–decisions ever and doesn’t seem to ever learn from her past experiences.
Her fiance, Mr.Romeo Coasta, is only slightly better. The chapters that are from his point of view are less annoying to read but his monotone personality doesn’t help him at all. Now, this man is on a mission; he wants his father’s company and he’ll do anything to get it. Well, expect Dallas. That’s right, Romeo has one rule when it comes to her: don’t have sex. But, he’ll do just about everything else. The majority of his chapters, or at least the memorable ones, are all the “sexy” things he gets up to with Dallas. That’s pretty much him. The best part about Romeo’s character isn’t even his character, it’s his friends. They actually add some personality to the book and give you the best thing to come from it: Every time the two friends reference Dallas by name they refer to her as a different city that starts with the letter “D”. It had me cackling every time. Back to Romeo, he makes the same stupid decisions that Dallas makes (maybe he’s just thinking with his dick).
At the end of the novel, I was drained. I felt that every other chapter was something sexual and all the ones in between those were the most insane things to happen. I felt as though the authors, yes there were two people who wrote this and said “Yeah, this is really good”, made a list of every crazy scenario they’ve seen in a mafia book or show and crossed them off the list when they wrote it into the novel. Not only crazy scenarios but also crazy instances. For example, in the very beginning of the book Dallas and Romeo are leaning against a wall for a lengthy amount of time, except that it isn’t a wall it’s a curtain that falls after they’ve been leaning on it for like 10 minutes! In what world is that possible?
I’m sure by now you may have guessed that my overall recommendation of this book is an astounding SKIP unless you're looking for the most deranged thing I’ve personally read. Maybe if the sex scenes were good it’d at least be worth the torture of the rest of the writing but alas I can not say that is true (unless ur into using a sheet as a condom). And that’s all I wish to say about the book right now, though I could say much, much more. Let me know if you’ve read or now want to read this, then tell me why because I don’t understand you.
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