Book Review: The Exquisite Torture of Loving Your Enemy

So I wasn’t planning on reading this for a while; however, my book bestie has also read the first of this duo series, and we decided to add it to our book club reading list. Now, for those of you who are not aware, this book is based on the smash hit A03 Dramione fanfiction ‘Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Falling in Love’. To date, it has over 4 million hits and is well known on the internet, celebrated and loved. So naturally, publishers picked up on its popularity, and it got reworked into something really rather wonderful. In this second instalment of the series, we pick up right where we left off, with the characters slowly and irrevocably realising that they don’t hate each other and, in fact, complement one another and are quite possibly in love with one another.

The banter is softer in this book as the characters slowly come to terms with what they feel for each other. The humour is still there, and all, but the landscape has definitely changed. It is also good to see when the lines between good and evil become blurred, and the focus becomes more on what is ‘right’ instead of good or evil. That definitely shows up in the ways the different Orders start working with each other instead of against each other. The Pox disease still ravages the fiefdoms, and a lot of them would like to know why.

While the plot noticeably thickens as the story progresses, it does so in a way that doesn’t feel rushed. Sometimes there seems to be a race to the end, and this met the expectation of a ‘slow burn’ read. We still get the main plot points from the first book, obviously; Osric still needs healing because he wants to live, and now (wink wink) he has something he wants to live for, as impossible as it seems. For Aurienne what started as a matter of pride soon becomes real academic interest; the magic is beautiful, unknown and shouldn’t be possible. But it is. It is a beautiful metaphor for her romance with Osric.

There is a massive showdown in which both Aurienne and Osric show their hand in a very obvious and adorable way, if it weren’t for the fact that they were both about to die. It then becomes clear to their opposing orders that the impossible can happen, and considering Aurienne and Osric pretty much exposed the entire conspiracy… I think they earned a pass, and no one cared about the fact that they were lovers. Obviously, we needed a high-intensity moment in the book, a moment where the stakes are high; it adds to the drama. But what I like about this is that the drama and peril felt natural to the world that the characters find themselves in. And what I mean by that is that the book doesn’t read like some over-melodramatic soap opera. No one wants that. I loathe that.

I might have to read this again, maybe not weeks apart but one after the other. Not something I do, but this might be my favourite romantasy that I have read thus far. Okay, true, I haven’t dived too deep into the Sarah J. Maas universe yet, but that is defo coming. Stay tuned. But yes, will probably have another read of this duo.