The next time someone suggests a book that has any sort of popularity on TikTok, I should just not bother. Or at least do my own damn research on a book before deciding to consume it.
I first heard of Pen Pal in a TBR video from a YouTuber that I typically get horror movie reviews from. I must not have been paying attention at the right moment, though, because I assumed that because a horror media YouTuber was talking about it, then it must be a straight-up suspense/thriller story. Little did I know that this book was actually marketed as a dark romance, and was not at all what I expected. But that sometimes makes little difference if the story inside turns out to actually be good. On the other hand…
Kayla Reece has just lost her husband Michael in a boating accident. The day of his funeral, she receives a strange letter in the mail from a prison inmate named Dante, whom she doesn’t know. Meanwhile, she develops an intense sexual relationship with her neighbor and roofing contractor, Aiden. But strange occurrences soon disturb Kayla’s house, and she goes to great lengths to find out the cause, which turns out to be more horrifying than she ever could have guessed…
You’d think from the title, Pen Pal, the mystery would unravel within letters between a stalker and his victim. But that compelling premise goes forgotten about almost as soon as the book begins. The book does begin with Kayla receiving the first letter the day of Michael’s funeral, but we only see, perhaps, three or four letters over the entire book. And they’re not even long enough to be important or relevant to the story.
Kayla isn’t even all that scared of the letters. In fact, she writes to him like she’s excited to make a new connection after losing her husband. Which, um, no? Lady, you don’t know this man and he’s telling you things only you know. That doesn’t frighten you at all? After that lack of survival instinct, it was quite hard to feel endeared to Kayla.
You want to know what the book is actually about? An intense sexual relationship with weird sub-dom roleplay and ghosts existing in parallel timelines. And does any of it make sense or is even that interesting? Nope. Not at all.
Look, I get that a dark romance is supposed to have intense romantic interludes. But what these interludes need is compelling chemistry, arousing sex, and relevance to the story. Kayla and Aiden do not have chemistry and their sex is repetitive, overlong, and weird.
Kayla and Aiden develop this goofy roleplay where Kayla is a bunny and Aiden is a lion, Kayla cannot have an orgasm without Aiden’s permission, and she must call him “master”. It gives off sub-dom vibes that is, to me at least, not sexy at all (no kink-shaming, it’s just not my thing). But the problem is that the sex scenes go on forever. And they all follow the exact same outline with Aiden making up something that Kayla needs to be “punished” for, she gets called a “bad bunny”, she asks her “master” if she can orgasm, and it’s the most absolutely amazing orgasm she’s ever had. Rinse, repeat, groan.
These two had so little chemistry that when the first sex scene popped up, it actually dragged from the first kiss. It even went long enough that I played the audiobook at double-speed, and it didn’t finish even after ten minutes. Yes, the scene went on for that long even at double-speed. And none of them got any sexier after that.
I’m not criticizing this because I’m a prude who doesn’t approve of sex in books. I just can’t stand when there is so little leading up to the sex and it’s not even tender or beautiful when it happens.
I also know that some people don’t need that much substance in their romances. But for goodness’ sakes, if you’re going to write multiple sex scenes, at least make them sincere and unique from each other. Make me feel like these characters are having fun together and they’re growing closer through sex, not the desperation of loneliness and the weird, uncomfortable dynamic of waiting to have an orgasm until your partner says you can.
On the whole, the romance is paper-thin and the sex really sucks. But the problems with this book don’t end there. And I’m going to get into spoilers because I don’t care about spoiling a book this bad, and so many problems go back to how this book’s twist is executed.
While Kayla and Aiden’s sexual relationship deepens, Kayla comes to discover that a ghost has taken up residence in her house. Eventually, she learns that both she and Aiden are dead, and her husband Michael murdered her. Turns out Michael was a paranoid schizophrenic narcissist who thought that Kayla and Aiden were out to get him, and Dante, the pen pal, is actually Aiden trying to explain to Kayla that she is actually dead, like him. All this is revealed so clumsily that I had a hard time keeping it straight.
Everything also comes so out of left field because there is no buildup. Kayla talks about the disagreements that she and Michael had in life, hinting at Michael’s toxic behavior, but they sound like any other domestic agreement a couple might have. It might have worked better if those disagreements slowly started to sound more heinous and controlling, such as Michael not wanting anything that Kayla wanted, or Kayla having to leave the house after an intense argument. But nope, it goes straight from normal couple spats to severe schizophrenic meltdowns, physical abuse, and even induced miscarriages. And yes, this book does use mental illness as an excuse for violence, a trope which we must retire.
The whole plot is simply bizarre and crumbles under its needless complexity, with the entire backstory/explanation being dropped in one info dump. If you’re not going to put any substance into your romance but will throw all your cards into making the world’s most complicated supernatural backstory, something doesn’t add up.
In the end, I didn’t care about any of it. None of the characters had any substance and certainly no chemistry. The twist had no buildup to it, and trying to explain the supernatural logistics barely worked. We could have gotten a very compelling mystery told through the letters a stalker writes to his victim, but instead, we got cringey and repetitive sex scenes and a needlessly complex ghost story with mental-illness-equals-scary thrown in for good measure. I don’t know who was responsible for the marketing on this crap, but they need more training.
The Library Key 