I believe that every book is an experience. A good or a bad one, but an experience nonetheless. This book was an… experience.

Enemies Forever is about two families: the Arringtons and the Petersons. They've hated each other for generations, but no one knows the reason why. Christian Peterson and Hailey Arrington hate each other and are always up for playing cruel pranks on each other. What will happen when they pretend to be dating to discover why their families hate eachother so much?

The first thing I'd like to establish is that the GPS was downright terrible. I've seen many mistakes in grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, you name it. This results in a story that does not flow smoothly at all. However, the author has stated that the story is largely unedited (will be edited in the future, perhaps) and that English is not their native language. Alright, acceptable. God knows my English was horrible when I first got here. It needs a fuckton of editing, this one, but I'll take it. Moving on.

Out of all the other issues this book has, I'd like to highlight this glaring problem specifically. Would you care to look at a definition with me?

Abuse: cruel and violent treatment of a person or animal.

I love the 'enemies to lovers' as much as anyone else. I love tensions between characters, banter, how two people gradually learn to trust and appreciate eachother… however, enemies to lovers is a hard trope to write, and this story falls into its most dangerous trap: abuse.

We see two people who hate eachother, eho literally physically fight eachother and throw food at eachother and all that. Even after they start fake-dating, Hailey kicks Christian in the balls, to name an example. The author tries to make them seem like they fall in love in supposedly cute moments, but hear me out: there's no love. There's attraction and foolishness?

Is Christian beating up an annoying ex-boyfriend hopelessly romantic, or is it violent red-flag behaviour? Is it normal for people to go from almost killing eachother to lovers with so little actual progress visible?

No. It's not. It's not love depicted here. It's attraction under fucked up circumstances.

There are young teens here on Wattpad. These people can be influenced by stories like this one, and it shows them that a relationship based on this can work. Well, I have some news: don't ever think this is normal. Don't settle for anyone treating you like this. This isn't love I'm seeing here.

There's nothing wrong with enemies to lovers, but it must be written well.

I would also like to dig into the absurd amount of clichés I found here, all the things I've already seen in so many other Wattpad stories. A list of examples:

-male main character is basically an arrogant asshole who does nothing but smirk

- everyone is hot and popular

- every guy is a womanizer

- everyone is filthy rich (or at least, mist main characters)

- the amount of eyerolls in this story isn't healthy

And the school, oh god, the school. A school like any high school in a Wattpad story: grossly inaccurate. That's not what any high school I've heard of is like. What kind of fucking drama? I barely read stories here that depict high school like it is, despite many people here being in high school.

Examples of actual weird/good shit that happen in my high school:

-one time the principal walked around on socks for no reason

-kids tried to bake an egg on a lamp

- the guys who brought a toaster to school

-students made an instagram cult for a teacher and that guy actively supports it

- a kid vaulting out of a window

-kids disassembling a chair and throwing it out of a window without the substitute noticing

- a guy who had 1,5 litre packs of ice tea on his table regularly and the teacher didn't even bat an eyelash

I could go on and on. This is a completely regular high school of a normal quality in my first-world European country. Why can't we ever see that kind of funny drama in high school stories? It's always the same old cliché bullshit.

A story needs realism. Of course, the fun in fiction is that not everything needs to be like it is in the real world; you won't hear me bitching about dragons in a fantasy story for not being realistic. However, a story needs realism to make the readers relate to it, to let them in and keep them captivated.

And oh man, some things in this story straight up don't make sense. In the beginning, Hailey and Christian flee from shooters in a club together. I hoped the story would do something more with that, but it was just completely random and the main characters were like 'lol okay'. In the last chapter, Hailey is basically kidnapped and forced to leave by her grandparents and the main question on her mind is 'I wonder if Chris likes me?'

I mean w h a t-

Is that supposed to be… relatable? No one in their right mind would relate, hate to burst your bubble.

And the families? What the hell? They're so evil? The Arrington grandparents literally have their bodyguards drag Hailey to Atlanta against her will so she can't be with Chris? The parents don't give a fuck about it?

What the hell, man. Just what the hell.

I don't mean any offense. See it as much-needed constructive criticism. This story has some huge flaws here that are in desperate need of solving.

Rating: 3.