Review : All the Ways to Ruin a Rogue by Sophie Jordan

Summary (from Goodreads) 

Title : All the Ways to Ruin a Rogue (The Debutante Files #2)
Author : Sophie Jordan
Publication Date :  July 28th 2015
Publisher : Avon
Goodreads - Amazon - Barnes & Noble

There was once a lady who loathed a lord...

Lady Aurelia hasn't always hated Max, Viscount Camden, her brother's best friend. In fact, as a besotted girl, she thrived under his kind attention – sure that he was the most noble and handsome man in the land. Until her young heart discovered what manner of rogue he really was. Now, though she enjoys nothing more than getting on his last nerve, she can’t deny Max drives her to distraction—even if she tries to pretend otherwise.

...and a lord who was confounded by a lady.

Max cannot recall a time when Aurelia did not vex him. If she was not his friend’s sister, he would stay far away from the infuriating vixen. Unfortunately, they are always thrown together. At parties and family gatherings…she is always there. Infuriating him, tossing punch in his face, driving him mad...until one night, she goes too far and he retaliates in the only way he can: with a kiss that changes everything.

Personal Thoughts

I quite enjoyed Sophie Jordan's debut book in this series, A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruins, and I especially had some fondness for Aurelia, the heroine in All the Ways to Ruin a Rogue. Together with the fact that this had a hate to love romance, I was over the moon to dive into the book. However, I was left disappointed with the way the story was executed.

I don't know what happened between the first book and this one, but Aurelia grew to be a very unlikeable character. After finding her childhood crush, Max, frolicking around with a maid, Aurelia is heartbroken and after drawing a humiliating caricature of him, which earns him the name of "Cockless Camden" from his peers, she enters this hate relationship with Max. Aurelia's reasons for despising Max in the first place were rather ridiculous. Firstly, she had no hold whatsoever on him and who he did it with and Max never knew how she felt about his, so punishing him for his flirtatious ways was over the line, in my opinion. There were moments where I sympathized with Aurelia because she was constantly reminded of the fact that she had no husband or prospect for that matter. Despite that though, the girl had so much pent up anger in her, it was just really hard for me to connect with her in any way. I can't say I felt any differently about Max either. I may have liked him a little bit at first for not tolerating Aurelia's tantrums, but by the end of the book, I wasn't fond of him either. I didn't like how he constantly insulted Aurelia or just stood by while other people insulted her. Oh and the worse part? He never apologizes to her despite feeling regret.

It was really hard to get behind their relationship because they were at each others' throats for 98% of the book. All they did was fight, fight, and make out. There was never a genuine emotional connection and while I knew they would probably make up by the end, I was surprised by the "I-love-yous" because they came out of nowhere and I wasn't convinced at all. They had great chemistry together and I wish it had been explored more. I love a good hate-to-love romance, but the love part of the romance has to outweigh the hate part, which wasn't the case in All the Ways to Ruin a Rogue. Ultimately, my main issue in this book stems from the fact that we don't get to see Max and Aurelia working together as a couple very much. That being said, Sophie Jordan has a very lovely writing style and her love scenes especially are gorgeously written, but I reckon this won't be a book for everyone.

If you think you can enjoy All the Ways to Ruin a Rogue despite the points I mentioned in my review, please give the book a shot, because I have no doubt that this is a book that will work for other readers. Otherwise, if you like historical romance, I still recommend the first book whole-heartedly.

Rating 

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 2/5
Writing : 4/5

**Overall Rating : 2.5/5**


Thank you to Edelweiss and Avon for the e-ARC of All the Ways to Ruin a Rogue.

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