Venom

“How terrible it must be to be a member of the noble class. So many rules. Such restraint. You must feel like a caged bird, battering its wings against the sides of its golden prison.”

2 STARS

I really wanted to like this book...I really did. The premise was so interesting: 1500s Venice, a murderer on the loose, and a dash of romance sprinkled in. But, it just didn't live up to that. Cassandra, "Cass", defied all the norms of her time period and her class. A girl of her status wouldn't sneak out in the night, certainly not with a stranger, and simply wouldn't do almost any of the shit she does in here. She wouldn't do it because she wouldn't risk her family's position in society, even if she was rebellious that fact is drilled into these girls because if they disobey they'll be on the streets in a heartbeat from the scandal. Now, I tried, I tried to put that aside, to move past it and disregard the horrible historical inaccuracy, but then the story just wasn't going anywhere. The characters were extremely vanilla, cookie-cutter, and I wasn't emotionally connected to any of them. Falco was an abusive asshole, Cass was irresponsible and petulant and boy crazy to the extreme, and all the secondary characters were forgettable and faceless. I had such high hopes for this book, but it fell severely short and was nothing but disappointing. DNF around 45%. Share your thoughts!