Júlia's Reviews > Gothikana

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 🌶🌶🌶🌶/5

TW: Explicit Sexual Content, Crude Language, Dark Themes, Psychological Trauma and Suicide.

I am pleasantly surprised by this read. I picked up this book after seeing it constantly on bookstagram for over a week. I came into this book without any expectations and I am glad that I didn't know exactly what to expect. Was this perfect? No. I have a few little nit-picky things to point out, however the only reason I will point them out it is because they are nothing more than constructive criticism . There is SO MUCH potential behind this author's writing style and imagination. I know people's writing develop the more they write and I want to make sure RuNyx knows she has the skill and that little seed inside of her that could turn her into one of my favorite authors.

This is the sort of book I search for. These are the sort of vibes I could read forever and ever, this is my tribe. Romantic ghost stories, tragic, consuming, maddening dark romances are the reason I read every single day. I live for this style of writing, gothic romance is EVERYTHING to me and Gothikana (as it is in the name, delivered almost every possible aspect of a goth romance I could wish for).

Here are the small things I think could be improved:

1. the repetition of certain sayings, and again these are very small notes, but she used the sentence "phantom ants" a lot. I think the real challenge in a book is to make sure you wear, tear and expand all the vocabulary you could possibly have to describe things differently every time.

2.This book could have been a little longer, I feel like Vad and Corvina had a very rushed, out of nowhere start and gothic romances thrive when you add a good slow burn and a more of an intricate development, they needed more time at the beginning to really connect so things wouldn't feel forced.

3.Some small dialogues were slightly cringy, and I mean this in a kind way, I think this also goes back to repetition, some things didn't need to be said more than once, they have more impact that way.

I am only saying this because I really loved this book and I had SUCH A GREAT TIME reading it. I feel like RuNyx has something really special and she is so close to PERFECTION. I would only make this amount of nit-picky annoying notes for a book I care about and for an author I really want to succeed.

Now to the GOOD, awesome things about it. The sex scenes were freaking phenomenal, the best I have read in a while. The tension was incredible, the age-gap romance was absolutely exquisite, the teacher-student trope was out of this world and executed perfectly, the mystery was creative. The story, the vibes, the castle, everything had a huge personality and soul. Our main character was sweet, intriguing, her mind was easy to follow and the world RuNyx created was easy to get lost in. The plot twists were fire, the gothic scenery and hidden secrets were exactly the mood I'd love to have in every book I read.

I can't wait to see what Runyx comes up with next, I really want to see her succeed and feed my gothic/dark romance addiction the same way Keri Lake does. I bet this book was really hard to write and she did it wonderfully!