⭐️1/5 stars
📖 Length: 336 pages
📱 Format: Paperback
⏳ Read Time: 5 days
Synopsis
We covered this in my first impressions post – here, so I won’t subject you to it again.
What I thought
You’re going to want to sit down for this.
And take a minute.
After my first impressions, I genuinely hoped this would pull itself together. Instead, it spiraled into a chaotic, overstuffed, badly written fever dream that felt like it was trying to be ten dark romances at once and succeeding at none of them.
So I’ll start by saying that I only finished Insatiable out of pure spite and stubbornness rather than enjoyment. If this wasn’t a book I’d been sent to review, I’d have DNF’d it after a couple of chapters.
So that single star is a participation trophy for myself, not the book.
And before we get into the whys and what-nots, a little reminder of how I review: I will always be honest. If a book isn’t for me, I’m going to tell you, and more importantly I’m going to tell you why. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for someone else. In fact, I can absolutely see why this has found its audience, especially on BookTok where high spice and high shock value are having a major moment.
But for me? Honestly? This was a flop.
The book is a lot to deal with and that’s not even considering the taboo topics or trigger warnings.
The story (and I use this term very loosely here) is a lot. Every chapter throws something new at you: plot, trauma, drama, spice, violence, angst… rinse and repeat. Zero room to breathe.
Constant emotional whiplash until you stop feeling anything at all.
When everything is intense, nothing is. Instead of depth, you get excess.
And the spice?
Endless.
Repetitive.
Copy-paste energy.
It stops being shocking, stops being sexy, and starts feeling like filler. And here’s the thing: I’ve read enough romances with only a handful of spicy scenes that felt far hotter than this.
It’s like someone thought shock value alone could do the heavy lifting. Spoiler: it doesn’t.
The plot is so far-fetched it borders on parody at times. I can suspend disbelief for dark romance quite happily, but it still has to feel internally believable. This didn’t. It felt forced, like the story was being dragged from one extreme scenario to the next purely for shock value.
The writing style didn’t help. The phrasing was clunky, the repetition was constant, and the technical issues pulled me out of the story far too often. Yes, it’s an easy read. You don’t need too many brain cells to follow what’s happening, but that simplicity comes at the expense of quality.
The characters?
Usually I can latch onto at least one. To love, to hate, to obsess over. Here? Nothing. Not a single soul worth the emotional investment. I will also add that there are some very obvious character parallels that readers of Haunting Adeline will clock immediately, particularly when it comes to Kade. And I’m not just talking about the name. 👀
Then we reach the ending, if you can even call it that.
Not a cliff-hanger.
A hard stop.
No emotional payoff. No sense of closure. Just the sudden realisation that if you want any resolution, you’re committing to the rest of the series — and I have absolutely no desire to do that.
Overall
Overwhelming, repetitive, poorly executed, and desperately in need of an editor.
I didn’t enjoy it.
I won’t be continuing the series.
Viral does not equal well written. Popular does not equal good.
Thanks again to Hannah Hargrave and Little, Brown Book Group for the copy in return for an honest review.
Interested in picking this up? Do so at your own risk.
On Amazon – here
Bookshop.Org – here
Until next time… stay ruthless 🖤
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