Review: Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean
I had a tremendous time reading this book. I have been reading all of Sarah MacLean's books in publication order and have really liked them all, and really loved many of them. So it was really interesting to read this book just feel like MacLean had just kind of leveled up. This book had everything I have loved about a MacLean book in the past, it just also takes an additional step.
The banter in this book is absolutely top notch. I was immediately besotted. I legitimately had trouble because I was underlining too much of the dialogue and it was slowing down my reading. I just found the word play and conversation in this book to be really really well done. I was delighted.
I thought that MacLean built the conflict in this book so well. It is a little bit like looking at a crash about to happen. The reader sees the hurt that is hurtling towards these characters and absolutely cannot look away. You begin the book in Devil's POV, and get to see his motivations pretty clearly and quickly. The reader knows this man is building his own trap, and it really propelled me through this book.
I have loved how much mythology shows up in MacLean's books in the past but was absolutely delighted about the Janus integration. This is purely because he is one of my favorite Roman gods and I really love the myth. I also just thought this book in general did a really great job of using metaphor. I found myself really emotionally compelled by the moth and the flame metaphor in particular.
I know all of the books MacLean has written are romances, but I just kept feeling like this book was was even more romantic than I was expecting. I felt completely wrapped up in this relationship. The emotions of this story just worked so well for me. I cried multiple times, I think three times, and everytime it was because of the conflict between the couple, which has not always been the case for me lately. I also found this book very funny, it made me laugh consistently throughout the novel. All of the emotions were handled so well.
This book also has me so excited for the future couples in the series and for the overarching plot that is going on. I am so curious about how she is going to handle the Duke in the last book. I think there is a slight drawback to romance in that I already believe that I will be fully on board with that couple that I kind of am not fully experiencing the emotional turmoil I should be relating to that character, but hopefully that will change once I get to the third book.
I do think this story fit really well with MacLean's first big foray outside of just the aristocracy. I am really interested in seeing how she continues to write these characters and to keep thinking about the way she writes about crime. She clearly has a thing for the nobel criminal, the person pushed to the edges of society who then has to break laws in order to survive but has a clear code of ethics. I don't dislike this character archetype, I probably like it too much, but I am always curious about the use of it and what broader commentary the author is providing.
This is certainly a case where my review is slightly lacking because it is often harder to pull out things that really worked for you than it is to focus on what didn't. This whole book just worked for me and I am so excited to keep reading this series.
I gave this book five stars.
