i read this terrible tiktok student-teacher romance so you don't have to

when introduced to an erotic dark Academia romance with a taboo student-teacher relationship most people would see its red flags and not pick up the book I however made the grave mistake of thinking it could be Darkly enjoyable and as punishment for my naivety I ended up reading the worst book I have read all year hello and welcome my name is Leoni so gothicana by runics is a self-published a romance novel in which we follow our female main character I will not give you her name yet because you know we'll get to that later we'll get to that later and she gets this invitation to a very secretive University that is situated in a Gothic Castle on a mountain and there she catches the eye of the very dark and mysterious literature teacher what follows is about 450 pages of fan fictiony writing cringy flirting if you can call it that a lot and I mean a lot of poorly written smut scenes and of course a novel like this is never complete without terrible depictions of mental health and romanticization of a borderline abusive relationship imagine my surprise when I found out that this gets glowing reviews on Goodreads um so I felt the need to talk about it let's start at the beginning the graphic design almost every chapter has a quote there's Edgar Allan Poe we have Niche there are many beautiful dark academia-esque pictures in the back it is only later that I realize that if you search on Pinterest dark Academia this picture is one of the first things that comes up I have used this picture in some of my videos should have been my first red flag to the surface level research that has gone into this book but I digress there is a playlist with Viva songs in the beginning of the book that includes bangers from Florence and the Machine Lana Del Rey Marina and the Diamonds Evanescence so I like that music I like that Vibe so could only mean something good right there's also a map and I love any book with a good map it has very useful signifiers like Lake and town and this bridge that is crossing nothing also the quote before the first chapter already has a little bit of a spelling mistake in it which is going to be a theme in the rest of the book I don't really mind spelling mistakes too much you know English isn't even my native language I'm not going to be too bothered by a little bit of a spelling mistake here and there I am here to just judge this book based on the story itself so let's begin there the story and I will admit you know the book starts out with a very strong good vibe our main character has a spiritual past she hears voices that are guiding her through life and she doesn't know where they're coming from and she receives this very mysterious invitation letter to a secretive University Dear Miss Clem the University of verinmore is pleased to extend our offer of admission to you get it because never more this book um really does depends on the literary achievements of other well-known authors to bring the vibe into this book we're ignoring that it's a good vibe I love stories where the main character gets invited to like secret societies I'm here for it so she travels to veronmore University it is this Gothic Castle on top of a mountain surrounded by dark woods she meets her roommate Jade who tells her a little bit about the secrets that are hiding in this University especially because this year is the year of the infamous black ball which only happens once every five years I don't know the exact details Jade says it happens every five years it's a masquerade ball tradition that's been a part of the University's history since its foundation okay our main character drawled and that's bad because because every black ball someone goes missing what the hell she whispered ignoring the awkward writing style okay we have a mystery on our hands that's nice um but unfortunately the cracks are starting to show very quickly let's just begin with our main character who I haven't introduced you uh to you yet so our main character is called Corvina big Crow theme throughout the entire book she also talks to Ravens when her teacher is like oh Corvina like the crow Corvina has a little sassy moment she corrects him like oh it's actually it actually means a raven which I'm still unsure I really looked everywhere I cannot figure out what the author was going for with the name Corvina I'm thinking it's supposed to be from the Latin corvus which means a raven or at least it's the biological name for Raven species but it's also the biological name for Crow species so I don't know where this thing comes from where she's like actually it means Raven not Crow because it means both um but that's corvus and actually Corvina if you just put this into Google like literally one Google search away you will find out that Corvina is a type of bony fish yet again this shows that the author did not go as far as just Googling our main character's name to find out what it could mean she always wears her dark clothes and her black skirts and her eyes are a beautiful violet this was the moment that I fully realized oh I am reading a book where the main character has violet eyes if you've ever been in like the fan fiction own character sphere where people would write fan fiction stories with their own characters you know that every time you come across a character that has some kind of oddly colored eyes you are in for a wild and horribly written ride and we are because this is how gravina describes herself wearing one of her black full-sleeved tops and brown maxi skirt a black ribbon choker around her neck brown lipstick on her mouth black liner outlining her odd violet eyes hair in a fishtail braid silver danglers hanging from her ears silver ring piercing her nose and a multi-crystal bracelet on her left wrist she never took off except to recharge Corvina felt most like herself what's in the ebony Darkness dementia Raven way am I reading she's special she's different later in that evening Corvina hears Strange Music coming from inside one of the towers of the University she takes her little candle holder because even though it takes place in the modern world apparently we still walk around with candles in the hallways just for the aesthetic of course and she finds the tower where someone is playing piano the piano is being played by the most magnificent beautiful man she has ever seen in her life and when she sees his silver eyes she knows that this is the teacher at their school that has the reputation of sleeping with his students she quickly runs away but the next day in her first English literature class who walks into the room who turns out to be her teacher the air shifted the silver-eyed devil that is what they call this teacher the silver eye devil walked in with a diary in hand commanding the molecules around him to shift well I don't know I guess he's a superhero now too there was a slight premature gray at his Temple and he is also described as having this like one streak of gray hair which is supposed to make him hot but it just made it so that I couldn't stop imagining him as Sweeney Todd and it felt like this entire book was just kind of some kind of Sweeney Todd fan fiction the teacher is Mr deverelle vad devarell it's a weird name I know I think it's like a play on like Devil like devarell def Phil Mr Devereaux and here we have our setup for our teacher student romance it's not even done that poorly because Corvina is a rather old for a student she is 21 and he is actually still a graduate student doing his PhD but he's also teaching and he is 28. at this point in the story I still had hope that it could potentially become like kind of fun Corvina instantly lusts after seeing this man just stand in front of the lecture hall for like one second she realized it was possibly the first time in her life she was feeling lust induced by an actual man and not a fictional character this was what it felt like writhing hot velvety he was unsettling very unsettling in a way that made her want to squirm in her seat especially when he looked at her like that and talked with that intelligence all he did was explain the English syllabus to you why are you squirming in your seat it was at this moment that I realized this book was not going to give me actual dark Academia but was just going to use dark Academia as a cute little Vibe for the story that was going to have Smart characters without actually ever having any research being done on what these characters are actually studying case in point the moment that Mr deverel is asked to tell people what his thesis is about because he's still a PhD student what is your project on if you don't mind me asking sir don't call me sir he commanded his hands gripping the table at his side his eyes coming to Corvina my thesis is the correlation and Influence of Music on literature Through the Ages not only is that sentence grammatically incorrect which is already ironic in itself if you do any research on universities or Academia in any sense you would know that that is the kind of research question that would get rejected if you were first here doing that this better be foreshadowing that that turns out to be immortal because you're gonna need a hundred plus years to answer a question as broad as that one so it's very clear that this is one of those dark Academia books that just uses dark Academia purely for its aesthetic if you've seen my dark Academia guide video you know that a core dark Academia book will be a critique of dark Academia it critiques the ivy league aesthetic the pseudo-intellectualism it critiques the elitism that is present in Academia a book like this just takes that ivy league aesthetic and that feeling of elitism and just runs with with it as like a fun Decor the main character doesn't really seem to love studying Academia has not explored at all in this book and as made clear by the mistakes that I just mentioned the author clearly did not even bother to do any research on the academic topic of this book which was English literature I could go into it more but I actually want to direct you to another video by another great YouTuber Maddie who also made a video about this book and she goes a little bit more deeply into the whole dark Academia thing of this book so I'll link it in the description after class everyone comes to gravina and is like oh my God you had So Much Chemistry with our teacher it felt hot and that's not okay not in this place this brings me to my next thing and that is that they make this really oddly big deal out of the fact that a student teacher romance is not allowed at this school specifically as if it's not common sense and later she also says you probably missed it because you're new but I'll give you the courtesy of telling you student teacher relationships are not allowed at verenmore University that's the way things work on this campus by introducing this rule the author completely shifted the entire tone of the book I'll explain why this is obviously a forbidden romance because it's student teacher but because of this Frame that the author used the romance between Corvina and Mr devrel is not forbidden because the power Dynamic that's at Play It's forbidden because it just breaks a rule you know her classmates aren't discouraging Corvina from getting with your teacher because of the potential of it going wrong the potential for favoritism or how it can affect her own academic career no instead they're just discouraging her from getting with him because it breaks a rule this was again another reason for me to believe that the author just didn't really realize what they were writing what kind of story they were writing it really felt as if the author was like okay we have forbidden Romans student teacher because that's against the rule so it's forbidden but we gotta raise the stakes so let's add something to the story that'll make it feel actually dangerous let's add people jumping from roofs so Corvina actually is told that is very dangerous for her to date Mr deverel not because dating an authority figure at your University can get you in very tricky territory no it's because the last student he dated jumped from a tower instead of building Stakes by using what was right in front of them that being all the complexities of a student teacher romance uh instead the author was like no let's let's bring side into this for drama and shock value at this moment in the video I think I do want to make it clear that I I don't hate this book because it's a student teacher romance I don't want to shame anyone who enjoys stories like this I mean I picked it up with a reason you know I understand the appeal of taboo romances you know just because you like something in fiction doesn't mean you would want it in real life it's usually because certain things are forbidden in real life that makes them so appealing to explore in the safety of a fictional novel and I'm not against Romans books exploring some dark and ambiguous tropes um it's just that when you do that you have to do it tactfully and you have to do it well which this book did not let's focus a little bit more on the romance shall we so um the buildup of tension I would say one of the most important things in a romance book have a good slow build up let me read you the first interaction that they have outside of class they meet each other at this Lake in the middle of the forest are you scared Mr devere asked should I be she asked raising her eyebrows slightly even as a part of her wants to break the eye contact and blush furiously at the singular masculine attention from a very masculine male and just in case you were about to forget that she is in fact speaking with a man then not even 20 Pages later they have their second interaction ever steer clear of me little crow he muttered his eyes piercing slaying her open you might be luring siren but I am no ordinary sailor I am a mad pirate and I'm trying to resist your call if I land on your Shores I will plunder and take away everything worth having be very careful giving me those eyes pravina blew out a breath holding her notebook against her chest for Life holy [ __ ] their third interaction he is cornering her in the library and we get the very necessary Twilight pseudo-conflict and we shouldn't be doing this she whispered hoping he didn't stop no we shouldn't he agreed I need to stay away from you I don't know what sorcery this is he whispered to her his words floating over her face as he leaned closer but I have to stop his hand left hers going to the side to grip her skirt so this is their third interaction and he already has his hand under her skirt I haven't read that many Gothic romances but from what I've known they're not known for their quick romantic progression but this book is groundbreaking and it's throwing that all out of the window his hand his big naked skilled hand brushed over her hip his breathing grew ragged as his finger made contact with her no panties Corvina shivered I don't I don't like underwear but I don't want this to turn into just a dramatic reading of all the smutty scenes because the point of this video is not to just laugh at people who like to read smut because there's nothing wrong with that there's however something wrong which is how poorly written they are but they do end up in a passionate kiss this book has some of the best dirty talk I've ever come across this is lust she whispered no Corvina the side of his lips twitched I've known lust this is something worse this is a barbaric need to possess to eliminate to own this is madness madness it felt like Madness didn't it a different kind of Madness than she was used to but Madness nonetheless so our main character Corvina has to deliver this letter to her mother but she can deliver it herself she needs a car now who has a car and who can drive her that's right Mr deverral our silver-eyed devil they drive up the mountain and it starts raining and pouring it becomes difficult to see where they're driving it's dangerous at this small little pathway along the mountain so they decide to wait by the side of the road for the torrential rain to calm down there's no one here Corvina only us whatever does or does not happen will stay here this is the time we can succumb to your sorcery he stated softly his pupils dilating this one time I'll allow myself Health to possess you gravina swallowed down her nerves she wanted it the one time to follow her urges and expunged this madness from her flesh and of course we find out that our main character has no experience with men whatsoever because even in books that really try to make a deal out of being about like women discovering their own sexuality and discovering their desires even in those kind of books still the main character always needs to be pure and inexperienced I've never done this she says the heat in his eyes flared you chose the wrong guy for your first time little crow that's not a fun thing you want here and a moment like that then he grabs her by her hips and I'm just hardly enters her while he says this is our Madness Corvina screamed at the intrusion her muscles shrieking as they got penetrated by what felt like a battering ram trying to split her open eyes stinging she breathed through her mouth trying to adjust but he then calls her a good girl so it's so fine and we get this beautiful sentence that makes Sizzle feel like a tail cell advertisement yeah so although it's clear from the narration that Ravina is very much enjoying what's happening that is not necessarily communicated very well and I just want to put some attention to the language that is used in pretty much every smut scene uh from now on and in this one as well this was the universe giving her a birthday gift the man she had wanted for months from afar finally hers to take for a night stuck on a mountain away from civilization this was her one chance to understand what it felt like to be claimed she'd never felt this never been possessed owned claimed like this with just one touch every inch of his body controlling hers and this kind of possessiveness doesn't just happen in the language that is constantly being used all throughout his book it's also clear in Mr deverelle's Behavior because a little while later he Corners her because he is angry because there's another boy that is giving her the eyes he wants you he says he can't have you and I just absolutely hate this kind of possessive Behavior just jealous possessive behavior that implies that the woman is just you know just a possession of the man and I understand that some people really like that but it's going to get worse towards the end and then we'll talk a little bit more about it then but for now I want to bring attention to the following thing because after Mr Deverell is like oh he can't have you like I don't want other men looking at you she responds by actually calling him out I'm not yours Corvina reminded him slightly breathless severely pissed you don't get to decide that this is an odd phenomenon that I've seen happening in more romance novels where the female main character actively denounces behavior that is being romanticized in the subtext you know this book is clearly trying to make a point out of the fact that Corvina doesn't take any kind of [ __ ] she doesn't let Mr deverelle just decide things for her and be possessive over her but the language that is being used in all of the Romantic and steamy scenes in this book are all about him possessing her and him claiming her and look if you're into that that is totally fine but then just let your main character own up to that I think it would have been great if Corvina just went to this guy and you know let him know that that is something she enjoys and that's something she's into and then they could have a conversation about it and actually establish consent about it but he's being super possessive and Corvina although she's enjoying it she's not really letting him know that so it's not like he's being possessive over her while knowing that she likes it they could have just made this into a thing that this is just what she likes could have established consent and it could have been on their merry race but instead they had to make like a whole deal out of Corvina actively telling him that she doesn't want it and then him doing it anyway I think this kind of cognitive dissonance in modern Romance Books comes from the desire to make the main character feel feminist and modern and this is achieved by making the main character superficially speak out against possessive Behavior without actually omitting the possessive Behavior itself I personally think the more feminist option here would be to just have the female main character ruminate on her own desires and communicate them with her partner anyway enough romance it's time for some mystery and more plots so the moment that the students are kind of chilling outside one of the male characters named Troy is actually standing on the roof and jumps down in front of everyone this scene is played out purely for shock and after this incredibly traumatic thing to happen in a book it is followed by the most like stock image type dialogue where everyone's just kind of like oh he was such a good guy oh you don't you never really know what people are actually thinking and then they just kind of move on Corvina just keeps hearing these voices in her head she's still worried about what's gonna happen at the black ball which is coming very near and oh I just I just really really hate it when these kinds of very Hefty traumatic things um are just used by authors as shocking plot points I'll just I'll just share some more cringy pieces of dialogue because of course after that we just gotta get right back into the romance right so Mr Deverell and Corvina are trying to get to know each other a little bit more okay let's bargain a secret for a secret he offered you give me one of yours and I'll give you one of mine you can't handle my secrets Mr Avril she told him with a toneless laugh you have no idea what I can handle Miss Clem she watches him as he's playing the piano you play so beautifully she Muse out loud in a slight days even your demons must sing his eyes opened at that and what do your demons do little crow she looked away cream okay so like I said they were trying to get to know each other a little bit more so she decides to tell him her like traumatic backstory because her mother is schizophrenic and she's also here hearing voices but apparently she was not diagnosed with schizophrenia so there's something else going on and she somehow they decide that she's going to talk about this while he goes down on her which gives us some beautiful Pearls of sentences my mother is schizophrenic she spoke the words out loud as his fingers softly caressed the skin of her thighs I admitted myself into a mental hospital to get myself tested just to be aware you know and and negative she informed him as his finger began to Circle her nether lips I don't care if you're haunted by forces beyond your understanding you are mine now for as long as this madness ensues her jaw trembled as she looked up at him with burning eyes for as long as this madness ensues and then he leaves and this is what she thinks to herself she glanced back one last time at the man who knew everything about her as she knew not one thing about him the imbalance of their power suddenly making her feel like the entire episode had been less of an act of affection and more a deal she just made with the Devil when the relationship completely built on a power imbalance turns out to have a power imbalance this again is another sign another reason why I really felt like the author just didn't understand what she was writing oh no he knows so much about me and I don't know anything about him that's such a power imbalance yeah and he's also your teacher the power imbalance was always there that's usually the whole point of these kinds of dark romances it's why people read them because of the power imbalance basically the structure of this book is just pages of Meandering about ooh what's gonna happen at the ball what are these voices in my head and then they have a booty call and she's wondering about the plot and then they have a booty call again I will spare you to details of the plot because they're really not that interesting all you need to know is that this black ball is nearing and that throughout the book Corvina discovers this little old shack in the woods um and she sees a shadowy figure standing in the shack but she she can't see who it is and then of course we immediately go back in again with some more smut scenes which again I have nothing I have no problem with there being so many smut scenes in the book I understand that's kind of the goal of the book I personally would like a little bit more build up so I'll just read you some excerpts just in case you were looking for some inspiration for dirty talk in the bedroom right so they're going at it again this time they're outside and she is against a tree you want to know who I am he punched his hips harshly against her I slam am slam your slim madness he put a hand on the back of her neck and suddenly slammed her into a tree her front pressed to the thick rough bark and she yelped her thighs burning with the weights to her being rammed repeatedly and her scraping against the back of a tree his possession of her was complete and this beautiful sentence the wet slaps of their skins the only sound in the room yet again the entire language being used the way that their romance is being described is just so incredibly possessive she takes on a very submissive role and he takes on the role of the very aggressive dominant man the reason that I have a problem with this is not because it's there because some people like that I don't think there's any need for more people shaming women for understanding what they like and understanding their own desires you can't really control what you're into and I don't want to shame anyone who enjoys these kind of possessive steamy scenes because clearly a lot of people mostly women really enjoy it and so does the main character when she has like bite marks of his she describes it as like really enjoying it as like a mark of ownership and it makes her feel at ease there's one scene that I think pretty clearly explains why she enjoys what they're doing you don't need a good good man do you you need a devil to fight your demons because you don't want to fight them alone your self-sufficient but you don't want to be you want that beast on the throne who will take charge of you there's nothing wrong with that kind of fantasy the reason that I don't like this is that in this book it is very clearly presented as the epitome of what a woman would want from a man right the whole point of this story is that our main character has no experience she only knows things from fiction and books and when they get together for the first time she's like you know she's finally getting what the books have promised her to get she is finally getting from a man what any woman would want and given the fact that this is also in a book we do know this is kind of how it happens I think a lot of steamy Romance Books is how a lot of women are kind of getting introduced to a little bit more steamy media of course this book doesn't exist on its own this is something that happens in I think most well-known steamy romances have Dynamics such as these and together they will give off a message of look this is what you as a woman should want it is framed as the thing any straight woman would want the epitome of what a woman can experience with a man in the bedroom so I guess that that's my main message is that I don't like these kind of very clearly patriarchal Dynamics being presented as the only way it is to be in a romance and not fully recognizing that if this is something that you enjoy you need to establish consent first and I mean you shoot in any situation by the way anyway the black ball is nearing and Mr Deverell gifts Corvina a dress which not only is this so beautifully described a deep burgundy almost dark purple dress hung from a hangar in one of the open window panes a collar so deep it shimmered with purple and black so what is the color of this dress like is it burgundy is it purple is it black like those are all different colors he tells her in a little letter he says to her the color of this dress reminded me of your eyes right after you come I didn't know people were changing their eye color after they came I'm learning things today so she does her purple violet black burgundy dress and they go to the masqueraded black ball of course this is a great moment for them to have a little bit of steamy fun somehow he ends up touching her under her dress and no one notices um and then he makes her finish so hard that she breaks the glass that she was holding which of course immediately makes him very worried about her this glass could have slit your wrist he said gruffly his jaw cleansing Corvina gave him a little smile through the pain then I would have died in your arms while coming and What a Beautiful Death it would have been foreign why did I decide to relive this book by making a video about it we're getting to the end don't worry because the fun at the black ball it doesn't last long remember the shack in the woods where Corvina saw the shadowy figure turns out there was a dead body in there that they couldn't identify they just identified the body we found in the shack the investigator told her his eyes sumber five foot three female died two years ago from blunt force trauma to the head burned post-mortem sometime in the last two months to make her harder to identify okay Corvina drawed not understanding where this was going the dead woman was Jade oh [ __ ] I will say I did not see this plot twist coming um probably because it wasn't foreshadowed at all and it makes absolutely zero sense um but I did not see it coming Jade corvina's roommate was the dead body in the shack that was supposedly there for two years what is going on before Corvina can think about this too much she um gets kidnapped and she blacks out who are you Corvina could barely whisper some kind of force keeping her paralyzed Jade frowned you're not supposed to be able to talk after this huh the dose must have been lower than I thought I love it when villains are always just like randomly explaining everything that they've done to our main characters you know they don't keep any secrets they just spill it all out so you know exactly exactly what's going on turns out that the person standing in front of Corvina who she thinks is Jade is actually thad's sister and the real jade was killed two years ago so that that sister could take her place the Jade that Corvina met throughout the story her roommate was never real it was just fat sister who wanted to like eliminate all of his love interests so that she could rule the world together with with her brother she has been using some kind of like tincture to control other people and make them jump of towers and roofs and now his sister is trying to control Corvina and it turns out that they're standing on a roof and she is going to make her jump off as well whoo drama what's gonna happen how is she gonna get out of it obviously that he just comes by and he saves her now if you're wondering how it ends they'd live happily ever after who am I he said to her my devil she murmured and my madness and my Mountain good girl and that's how it ends or does it they go back to verymore University and the idea is that vad is writing a book and it's this book the idea that he is that he like wrote all their stories down and that's gothicana the end for now sounds like a threat so the voices that Corvina has been hearing in her mind all her life apparently they were just figments of Her Imagination like a result of her childhood trauma we don't really get an answer to why she's been hearing the voices of the actual dead people like there's so many unanswered questions and if you want to see more bookish videos normally we're a lot Chiller here you can subscribe to the channel because I do talk about books all the time I really want to thank Ashley from a Frolic through fiction for gifting her copy to me I totally understand why you never finished it and why you thought it was bad I hope you have a wonderful day and I will see you soon with another video next week goodbye [Music]

Channel: The Book Leo

Views: 2,580,512

Keywords: book, books, booktube, reading, booktuber, peruseproject, paperbackdreams, review

Id: Gsuu_QyihDA

Length: 38min 10sec (2290 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 27 2022