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🧛🏻Modern Gastby Retelling
✨supernatural romance
🧛🏻Vampires
✨Spice

Thank you Dreamscape Media and NetGalley for this ALC.

I really wanted to read this book once I knew it was a modern retelling of the Great Gatsby. I love how the characters evolved and had the modern feel in this book. The fundamentals of the great Gatsby are still present, but not enough to where it’s completely the same. This book is its own book. I love that there was a supernatural element because some of them are vampires. I found it most unique that Daisy had a special trait to her. I am so glad that the book did end like how the Great Gatsby did, just because I didn’t want the sad ending. I love the world building in Beautiful Villain. I enjoyed the scientific elements to it. The narrator was amazing. I would definitely recommend this book or the audio. The spice scenes were very good, especially if you love a vampire romances.

As a massive consumer of Rebecca's work I was so excited for this book. I initially fell in love with her Wicked Darlings Series and have been hooked since. I really thought there wasn't a book that she could write that I wouldn't absolutely completely love. I was wrong. It could be because it's more contemporary based and I just love the fantastical worlds she creates, but I struggled with this.

I've never been one to be a fan of things in modern day that get mentioned in books unless it's a memoir so I get thrown off when things like tiktok, youtube, etc are mentioned. I was also a little disappointed that the main characters names weren't changed for the retelling since the story was told modernly and mentioned things in media that exist in our world. My brain just kept circling back to the fact that The Great Gatsby was literally apart of my school's curriculum so I was like like how does she not make a silly reference or anything when we have twilight references.

<spoiler>Jay didn't feel like much of an upgrade to her other ex. He blamed her for something that was out of her control that was her parents fault and for something as wild as them not trying to adopt him. Which was crazy because they were dating, like why would you want that? And to the jealousy of her sleeping with someone else when they spent 7 years apart when he slept with people. Also the biting into the lady bits, I was screaming in horror. </spoiler>

Though the writing was great in this book, I did not like the characters at all. Why incorporate vampires? IDK not for me, but people probably like it if they like contemporary fantasy and retellings.

It was a slow start to set the scene, the reimagining of The Great Gatsby paranormal elements was clever. The first half was a bit cluttered with unnecessary details, like she was on her fifth car because she was not a great driver. Just a random fact that did not help the story. The other half was where the action picked up and the author shined with her version of Gatsby.