Ashley's Reviews > Split or Swallow

This is a fun palate cleanser if you just take it for what it is. The premise is ridiculous: generic fantasy setting where young women of a certain age are trained to be good at sex by basilisks (don't worry, they're in sexy human male form) in order to be married to the prince à la The Bachelor style, where he eliminates one or more potential queens-to-be each week.

Surprisingly, it's not as silly as you might think, but also don't approach it too seriously either. While the speech is mostly modern, the author does a good job as to not being too anachronistic. The pacing is mostly good, it does start to meander a bit too much at the end, and the plot itself starts to show cracks with more characters and twists being added.

As for characters, Caspen, the handsome human-basilisk sex trainer, is pretty bland, honestly. He's the classically stoic, protective romantic male lead (think Tamlin from ACoTaR). Leo, the rakish prince (who's actually misunderstood), is better, and I wanted more scenes with him.

The female lead, however, is insufferable. This is another book where I can understand why the FMC falls for the male leads, but I cannot for the life of me understand what they see in her. She is petulant and pissy almost non-stop.

Overall, it's a good book to read if you're in a slump or want a spice-heavy book (we're talking ghost pepper level here). This was definitely a FOMO read for me (I'm weak, I can't help it) and I had a generally fun time but don't think I would read the next one when it comes out.