THE CURSED LUNA AND HER FATED MATE

I'll be blunt: This must have been written by a teenager. Every character acts and thinks like a teenager. The male lead character stands out as the most teenage of them all: he is the whiniest and most immature Alpha werewolf character I've ever read. He is always thinking of his love life, apparently barely ever had to work given how much it is not mentioned in his constant inner monologues and inner dialogues with his inner wolf. Yet somehow this character that only is ever thinking about women managed to overcome several other packs. But this is a given because of the teenage perspective. The teenage perspective is often obsessed in the affairs of love, self discovery, and social reputation. There's barely any mention of work and responsibility because teenagers tend to not have to worry overly much about such outside of school. Which is why the female lead stands out as the most believable and mature character. She is a slave so she does think about work. She's constantly preoccupied with her place in the pack as is expected of the shiftless she-wolf trope. To its credit, this novel focuses so much on the perspective of the two lead characters that I don't have to worry about the plot diverging into too many subplots. It is mostly grammatically correct, even better in this respect than other novels of the same genre. However, the author seems to constantly get confused about gender and they often use incorrect pronouns in character inner monologues. I do want to finish this review with something positive. The female lead character is one of the most realistic when it comes to her attitude and behavior given her circumstances as a shiftless slave. She doesn't have this inexplicable wellspring of optimism and cringeworthy naivety. As any normal person would, she focuses on what matters most in terms of survival, and it isn't until the male lead, who can't stop thinking about his love life, barges into her life that she starts wandering much about the possibility of finding someone who loves her. Unfortunately for her, the male lead sees her as a broken toy rather than a person and not even much of a fun one at that. She is constantly objectified by everyone, especially the male lead, and her attitude towards people matches with that of someone who had to deal with similar circumstances for many years: caution, doubt, observant of the people around her, pragmatic, and a healthy dose of pessimism. Her greatest dream is to be treated like a person and satisfy her longing for affection that she has been so cruelly deprived of throughout her life. Overall: it's not bad for a teenager.