(ARC from NetGalley but I read it after the pub date, my bad) This feels off brand, but this was ~too~ spicy. Plot? I don't know her and that's ok I just cannot get into bully romances.

I was intrigued by this title being pitched as a gothic Harry Potter meets Gossip Girl. I think that description is pretty accurate. I devoured this book in a day or two. The story was engrossing and compelling and I could not put it down. I was heavily invested in the characters and the plot. Every single character is morally gray, at best, and I found that I enjoyed that aspect of the book while reading it, but looking back, not as much. I like an enemies to lovers story, but could have done without the bullying aspects of the romance-- that part was just not for me. So, I suggest that readers take a look at the trigger warnings before picking this one up. I would maybe read more from this author or series if I was in the right mood, but I don't think I would actively seek it out.

First of all I would like to thank the publisher for sending me the copy of this book.

I have to say I was intrigued by the Harry Potter vibes and so I decided to read it.
The story is about Alecto Black, who starts to attend the Bene Academy.
Obviously she is bullied by almost anyone because she is a half-witch.

I really liked the writing style of the author. It was dark and gloomy at the right point.
Unfortunately I could not relate to tha characters. Alecto was too difficult for me to understand.

I want to be clear with my review: this is my first time reading dark romance, a bully romance, and a steamy one. It's not the genre I read but I was intrigued by the blurb and I actually ended up liking it! I think it could go up to a 4 stars for readers used to that genre, hence why my 3.5 is rounded up to 4 here.

As said, I'm pretty much surprised to have liked the book (not to say I thought I would hate it, but you know, you're afraid when it's a new genre you're trying). The beginning was hard to read and I needed a time to adapt, and as it's a bully romance there were things that were too much for me - but I tried to put that aside and read it as an entertainment, and I really felt the dark Dramione fanfiction and an even darker / more based on sex and blood of The Magicians tv show.


I really liked how conflicted Blaze's emotions were, the way his feelings evolved and how he acted around that - I think he had a good character depth. A little bit less for Alecto surprisingly, but maybe it was due to the fact we put too much on her mortal side that everything seemed a bit weird? Anyway, I enjoyed their story, the way everything was dark, really twisted, yet I was really into their "relationship".

What I felt lacking was the worldbuilding, the fantasy side. We'r in a campus type of school with multiple houses, with witches, a city (country? I don't even know) outside of the human realm, with weird creatures and known creatures, with demons, magic... And yet, it felt like I don't know much about this city/country's story, we don't know much about the demon/Hel either, why some humans were in Venefica, why this Game happens and how the ranking actually works, etc. It was disturbing to be in the dark: we like what we're reading, the story happening (even tho I actually thought we'd get the whole game but we only got 1st trimester), but we do with what we can get here and there.

Wow-this book-wow. So much blood in this one! Lots of trigger warnings for this one. It didn't bother me too much, but I can definitely see that it might not be for everyone.

I received this ebook in exchange for an honest review. I didn’t know what to expect going in— but I will admit I was a bit disappointed. I do like the dark academia vibes and when I saw the premise for this book I was excited to read it… it just fell flat for me unfortunately. I felt like some storylines felt unfinished and there were some aspects that were a bit disturbing. Overall it was a decent read but I didn’t love it.

While Wilde author clearly has skill and, at times, wields beautiful prose, this novel felt messy and disjointed. The bones of the book are good, but the meat feels haphazardly flung onto the frame. I loved the tease and hook of demon summoning in the first chapter, but deployment of the character felt poorly paced against the backdrop of the story. At moments, this read as edgy and performative rather than intentional, the characters often acting out tropes rather than using the trope for further development.

I feel with further edits and massaging this could be a solid entry into Dark Academia, but as it stands now I would not recommend House of Pain to other readers.

For some reason, i wans't expecting to enjoy this book as much i did. It was so much more than i thought it would be.
There is a dark academia school setting, there is magic and there is quite a bit of s*x.
This surprised me, in a good way, but was also really weird, as in unusual, because s*x was so "normal" there was even s*x magic! I think that is what made the book really unique.
It also had a bunch of unlikeable main characters, or morally grey ones, a trope i am coming to like more and more.
I cannot wait for book 2 as book 1 was one of my '22 favourites!

I love dark academia and when I read the synopsis I wanted to read this book. I went with high expectations and was a bit disappointed. It got me awhile to fully emerge and understand the plot. I love the spice in a book, but think that in this case there's more spice than actual plot. The characters were nice, some of them irritated me to my very core. But overall it was OK and at times kinda fun and interesting.

3.5 stars

First of all, I would like to thank NetGalley for giving me an arc of this book.

Honestly, I was really excited about this book at first -- it had everything I appreciate: reverse harem, witches and a bit o dark fantasy. However, as much as I was excited for it, I found myself truly struggling to get through this book. It's not that it's a bad book, I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea... I felt like everything took forever to happen and no matter how much I read, the book would never end. It was a tiring read for me, although the book itself wasn't quite as bad... In the end I have mixed feelings about it, so that's way I can't really give it a higher rating.

Overall Rating - 3.75 stars rounded upto 4 stars

I was initially interested in this book because of the vibes and I totally loved them. There was a rich/elite vibe to the book somewhat like gossip girl and then you had a bit of dark academia vibes as well. There was betrayal and drama and fantasy and overall it was just so good.

The story also has a lot of spice which I loved but if you aren’t into that then don’t read this.

Comparing it to Harry Potter would be far fetched though we can definitely see the similarities. This one is adult though so no kids 👀👀

I want to read the second book so badly now. Absolutely cannot wait.

I have a lot of thoughts on this book and I'm honestly conflicted on how to review this.

First and foremost, thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I like the premise of this, but the execution wasn't fully there. Wilde definitely had a vision with the world they were building, but it didn't feel fully fleshed out. So, I guess what i'm saying is this book has a lot of potential. I think there's a lot of room to further refine this in the second book so I may still be interested in picking it up. The reader is thrown into the world with little information in the world around them, which wasn't done too badly with the assumption we would learn along the way. Unfortunately, we did not learn nearly enough along the way. I still do not understand why the game is happening, the purpose of the books each house holds, or the Imp Queen's purpose. I would have loved to learn more about the Imp Queen and why Val struck a deal with her. I also want to know more about Alecto's mom and Blaze's Dad. The spicy scenes weren't bad, there were a few solid ones I really enjoyed and a few others that weren't my favorite.

I think this book really shines on the creatures around the world - I wish we could have focused on the forest more or the blood lake. I really liked the inclusion of the artwork with the sweeter scenes between Alecto and Blaze. I like that the relationship between our two main characters was more of a slow burn considering how this book is presented. I think the way the author portrays how rich old men would act in a very realistic way (for better or worse lol). The academia vibes were definitely there and I hope that the next volume really thrives.

My main issues/things I hope improve in the next one:
- we need more pet names, "baby" was overused and ended up losing any impact it had
- I was so frustrated by Hell being spelled as Hel - this may have been a find and replace error, but I have no way of knowing with a galley, unfortunately
- what is this game and why is it such high stakes!
- more world building
- please lord, don't make them related. I'm afraid this is going to happen...

Right from the description I was intrigued with this one. While it fell as little flat as it is the first in the trilogy so there is a lot of world building, I found myself wanting to know more that happens. There is spice in this one though so it packs some sizzle. From the concept to how things played out, I am looking forward to what is to come next!

So, I did DNF this book at around 50%. I gave it my all, but in the end, it just wasn't for me.

2/5 Stars

Thank you Netgalley for the arc

*2.5 stars* House of Pain was quite an intriguing and disturbing read. It took a while for me to get into it, but once I did, I didn’t want to put it down. I high recommend reading the TWs before reading!!!

This story was twisted, dark, and quite explicit. I loved it. However, it could have been better. I felt like the pacing was a bit off. Some parts felt extremely long and others too fast.

These characters are all easy to hate, but somehow so easy to adore. Blaze‘s POV was my favorite. Jolene and Andro are the best characters, hands down. Alecto being snarky was my absolute favorite. Val got on my nerves quite frequently.

Overall, this book, while not the best, was good and I will be reading the next one.

I’m all for this genre of book especially when it starts with “Harry Potter meets gossip girl” or I read reviews that say it’s a “spicier zodiac academy”

But this was slow, no world or character building, and I just could not get into it.

I unfortunately struggled to finish this and I just really wanted to enjoy it more than I did.

As someone who enjoys the enemies to lovers trope. I thought this book was stellar. The hate hate relationship between Blaze and Alecto is the R rated version of Carden and June.

I would have given this book 5 stars except the fact that the plot is fairly minimal. Don’t get me wrong, there is action and there seems to be something happening throughout the whole book. But the fundamental plot is lacking. The story is about the Games that happen every year. And while there is a deadly game happening around them, I thought it would be much more focused on that.

House of Pain is described as Harry Potter meets Gossip Girl and nothing more needed to be said to get me interested in this one. I also felt like it has strong Zodiac Academy vibes if that interests you. The magic system in this novel was different that what I've read before. Blood is a huge part of this book and is part of the magic system. Their whole goal was to take down other Houses at the academy. The hero Blaze is quite toxic but so are most characters in this novel. Just be prepared for a bully/hate romance between Blaze and Alecto. Overall, this was an interesting read but definitely check trigger warnings.

This book is set up for a new series that is promised to be: "Gothic Harry Potter meets Gossip Girl" and this made me so intrigued by it. There are also more - morally gray characters, and this is something that I always love to read about.
Alecto is a girl that rocks it all and will be the boss of her life. As this story is about somehow Dramione feature she's a half-breed, but also comes from a wealthy family - so she comes from power, which will be her win card in some cases. As a witch, she's also powerful so he has a power that needs to be reckoned with! I hope some aspects of her life will be explained in the next book, as Alecto has some hidden secrets that I need to know!
Blaze, o my gosh - a bully... that you will love to hate - terrible things are coming from him to Alecto, but it will be forgiven to him somehow. He is like a well-known character - coming from a background that is not in favor of someone coming from a not-pure family, but this was not out of place and made real by Ms. Wilde.
The beginning of this story was a little bit hard to follow, but after a moment I fell for this book and wanted to read this book ASAP, as the premise was so well intriguing to me. This book is written in this person so it seemed more plot drive, but generally, it was character-driven in my opinion Generally I find "House of Pain " a really good book with a great premise and wonder what will come in the next installment!

This was something different for me however I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down and read it super fast.