New Adult Reviews

Review | Torn

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout.

Length: 369 pages.

Trigger Warnings: sexual assault, sexual abuse, violence, drugs, kidnapping, mentions of suicide.

(Book #2 in A Wicked Trilogy)

“I was not alone in any of this. I was only a little torn, but not broken.”

Goodreads Synopsis.

Torn between duty and survival, nothing can be the same. 

Everything Ivy Morgan thought she knew has been turned on its head. After being betrayed and then nearly killed by the Prince of the Fae, she’s left bruised and devastated—and with an earth-shattering secret that she must keep at all costs. And if the Order finds out her secret, they’ll kill her. 

Then there’s Ren Owens, the sexy, tattooed Elite member of the Order who has been sharing Ivy’s bed and claiming her heart. Their chemistry is smoking hot, but Ivy knows that Ren has always valued his duty to the Order above all else—he could never touch her if he knew the truth. That is, if he let her live at all. Yet how can she live with herself if she lies to him? 

But as the Fae Prince begins to close in, intent on permanently opening the gates to the Otherworld, Ivy is running out of options. If she doesn’t figure out who she can trust—and fast—it’s not only her heart that will be torn apart, but civilization itself.

My Thoughts.

What did I just read?

If you read my review for the first book, then you’ll know that I thought the first book was predictable. Well, that was definitely corrected in this installment. I swear I thought I somehow got a weird version that wasn’t the actual book because I read so many reviews on it and basically NO ONE talked about the major and horrible things that happened in it. I don’t know if I’m just too sensible or what, but I was stunned. Still, the plot was very interesting and progressed a lot more than I expected. I do think it was one-tracked, meaning that there weren’t many things happening at once, which isn’t a bad thing because we did get a lot of information and development with what did happen.

I’ll start off simple. The characters once again… Brilliant.

I was nowhere near here. It was like being blanketed in clouds. Maybe that’s where I was. Up in the sky where nothing could ever harm me.

Ivy has definitely went through very VERY horrifying things in this book. Even if she almost broke and felt like giving up many times, she didn’t. That is something that I admire a lot. Jennifer L. Armentrout managed to create a strong, perseverant character that is also vulnerable, and that’s beautiful. We’re all vulnerable at one point or another in our lives, and we already knew that Ivy was as well because we got to see a little of that in the first book. However, her story in this installment has definitely caused long term trauma, and I’m intrigued to see how she’ll deal with that in the next book. Though I have a bone to chew with her, so if you’ve read the book, please let me know so that we can talk about it.

The Prince, on the other hand, is one of the vilest, most horrible, cruel, and ruthless characters I have ever read about. He is an a**hole. I mean, he is a great villain, but probably my least favorite villain of all time. Everything he did was horrifying and I really hope the main characters get some revenge, cause this guy needs some suffering of his own.

On another note… Ivy and Ren’s relationship is wonderful to read about, but then again, I love all of Jennifer’s couples. At the beginning, we got a lot of them together, which is right up my street. But, towards the middle, they were separated and we got to see Ivy more as an individual, which I really appreciated as well. I am excited to see their dynamic in the third book, because there’s a lot of potential to do something original with them, considering what happened throughout this installment.

Oh no, me wanting this is never going to happen. Like, the never-ever part is Taylor Swift level of never-ever.

Overall, this was a great second book. I think that everything that happened between Ivy and the Prince dragged on a little, but only because those scenes were extremely hard to read and get through. Definitely make sure that you’re comfortable with reading strong scenes and pay attention to the trigger warnings. I wish I’d known some of these to be more mentally and emotionally prepared. Despite all this, I had a great time and can’t wait to read the conclusion for this series.