Review: Nightingale by Laura Lascarso (Virtuous Sinners)
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
DNF at 26%
Right off the bat, I have to say my highlights on goodreads are required to understand the shit I just read.
This is my first book by this author. …yeah. Honestly one of the things that caught my attention was that it says its accountant x assassin - what is the assassin going to need an accountant for?? This is intriguing.
Lies. It is not intriguing because it doesn’t really matter than he’s an accountant. Rude.
Characters
This is dual first person POV, so we get to see inside of both characters heads and thought processes. And then judge them accordingly.
Khalil - what a dillweed. I actually strongly dislike him, and not in a fun way. He just sucks. He’s rude and judgmental of Julien, and somehow breathtakingly naive. How can he be so naive after working for the mob for x years? (timeline is very unclear) I don’t even know how you can ostrich to that degree. Which is also why I really dislike him for how terrible he thinks of Julien, while noticing absolutely nothing and just nonstop judging him apparently the entire time they’ve known each other (based on the past info dump). How can I buy into a romance at all, even a past one, when all Khalil thinks about is how much he doesn’t actually like Julien??
He’s such a naive moralistic asshole, like how can you have such idiot babby opinions when you literally work for the mob!! I am pretty mad about this. Julien is doing literally all the work and this dipshit just bellyaching dragging his dumb feet being holier than thou about everything.
Julien - he’s just sort of there. He was mildly intriguing, all his maneuvering and planning and crime stuff, but its so unbalanced by Khalils bullshit I’m not interested in continuing.
Romance
I did not buy into this romance at all. It seems like it’s supposed to be a second chance type thing, based on the info dumping about their history together? Which had detail yet was intensely vague. Plus I guess they also still have hate sex? Or something? I don’t know. The writing style made it impossible for me to figure these things out.
Since I very much disliked Khalil, I wanted Julien to disappear and find someone who actually would like him and not relentlessly judge him for everything he ever does and stuff outside of his control.
The writing
I think it is clear that there is a severe mismatch in the way this is written and my personal taste, because I really hated how this was done. It’s about 80% purple, flowery, pointless prose that just drags on and on and on. It doesn’t serve to give any depth to the plot, the characters, or their (alleged) romance. It just makes me roll my eyes when they’re waxing poetic in a livejournal sort of way about appearances. This is amplified by the strange background religious imagery, I guess it’s just kind of there? Leads to some weird as hell highlights, I’ll tell you that.
It also hindered my ability to understand what was even happening, which is the worst crime for a book. The strange info dumping-past recollection stuff was confusing. It was too much information while somehow telling me very little. The timelines and even what the heck they’re doing at this point of the book occurring makes no sense to me. It’s distracting in its vagueness.
Sometimes, it seems like the effort to be poetic ends up with misused words, or even ones that are a terrible match for the scene - I have a highlight somewhere that has a flush being described as “spreading like a rash” or something, mid sex scene. Rashes and sex don’t go well together, as a mental image. Plus then they invoked super gonorrhea, so like…super sexy, thanks. Rashy infected sex.
Overall, this very much did not work for me, on pretty much every level. The accountant thing was disappointing, the mob thing was bland and disappointing, I hated Khalil and wanted Julien to find someone better, the writing was deeply unpleasant to read…….not a winner in this series.
Virtuous Sinners series
I Am God’s Dagger ⭐⭐⭐
Dark Valor ⭐⭐
Day of Judgement ⭐
Speak and Obey ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is my first book by this author. …yeah. Honestly one of the things that caught my attention was that it says its accountant x assassin - what is the assassin going to need an accountant for?? This is intriguing.
Lies. It is not intriguing because it doesn’t really matter than he’s an accountant. Rude.
Characters
This is dual first person POV, so we get to see inside of both characters heads and thought processes. And then judge them accordingly.
Khalil - what a dillweed. I actually strongly dislike him, and not in a fun way. He just sucks. He’s rude and judgmental of Julien, and somehow breathtakingly naive. How can he be so naive after working for the mob for x years? (timeline is very unclear) I don’t even know how you can ostrich to that degree. Which is also why I really dislike him for how terrible he thinks of Julien, while noticing absolutely nothing and just nonstop judging him apparently the entire time they’ve known each other (based on the past info dump). How can I buy into a romance at all, even a past one, when all Khalil thinks about is how much he doesn’t actually like Julien??
He’s such a naive moralistic asshole, like how can you have such idiot babby opinions when you literally work for the mob!! I am pretty mad about this. Julien is doing literally all the work and this dipshit just bellyaching dragging his dumb feet being holier than thou about everything.
Julien - he’s just sort of there. He was mildly intriguing, all his maneuvering and planning and crime stuff, but its so unbalanced by Khalils bullshit I’m not interested in continuing.
Romance
I did not buy into this romance at all. It seems like it’s supposed to be a second chance type thing, based on the info dumping about their history together? Which had detail yet was intensely vague. Plus I guess they also still have hate sex? Or something? I don’t know. The writing style made it impossible for me to figure these things out.
Since I very much disliked Khalil, I wanted Julien to disappear and find someone who actually would like him and not relentlessly judge him for everything he ever does and stuff outside of his control.
The writing
I think it is clear that there is a severe mismatch in the way this is written and my personal taste, because I really hated how this was done. It’s about 80% purple, flowery, pointless prose that just drags on and on and on. It doesn’t serve to give any depth to the plot, the characters, or their (alleged) romance. It just makes me roll my eyes when they’re waxing poetic in a livejournal sort of way about appearances. This is amplified by the strange background religious imagery, I guess it’s just kind of there? Leads to some weird as hell highlights, I’ll tell you that.
It also hindered my ability to understand what was even happening, which is the worst crime for a book. The strange info dumping-past recollection stuff was confusing. It was too much information while somehow telling me very little. The timelines and even what the heck they’re doing at this point of the book occurring makes no sense to me. It’s distracting in its vagueness.
Sometimes, it seems like the effort to be poetic ends up with misused words, or even ones that are a terrible match for the scene - I have a highlight somewhere that has a flush being described as “spreading like a rash” or something, mid sex scene. Rashes and sex don’t go well together, as a mental image. Plus then they invoked super gonorrhea, so like…super sexy, thanks. Rashy infected sex.
Overall, this very much did not work for me, on pretty much every level. The accountant thing was disappointing, the mob thing was bland and disappointing, I hated Khalil and wanted Julien to find someone better, the writing was deeply unpleasant to read…….not a winner in this series.
Virtuous Sinners series
I Am God’s Dagger ⭐⭐⭐
Dark Valor ⭐⭐
Day of Judgement ⭐
Speak and Obey ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Moment of Truth (i cannot find this??)
Nightingale - ⭐
Man of Carnage
Pure Silence
The Right Way to Wrong - n/a
View all my reviews
Nightingale - ⭐
Man of Carnage
Pure Silence
The Right Way to Wrong - n/a
View all my reviews
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