Manıac

“The family that slays together stays together.”

Aiden and Thomas have been pining after each other for the last twenty years without ever actually reaching anywhere. Neither of them was able to move on from their nonexistent relationship. But when Thomas starts receiving threats, everything changes. Thomas asks for Aiden's help, and Aiden is determined to finally uncover whatever secret Thomas has been hiding from everyone all these years.

When you read a lot, you start sensing when a series is going downhill. That feeling started for me with Mad Man and became impossible to ignore after Lunatic 😨😨 I was so disappointed with Lunatic that I deliberately lowered my expectations for Maniac. And I truly hate to say this, but even with my lowered expectations, I still ended up disappointed 😔😔 The only reason this book didn’t drop to 1.5 stars is because I like Thomas and Aiden more than I liked Archer and Mac.

These characters are supposed to be adults—actually, more than that. If I’m not mistaken, they’re around 40–50 years old. Yet if I didn’t know their ages, I could easily believe they were teenagers experiencing their first love, based on how they behaved 🤦🤦 For characters this age, I expected at least some level of communication skills—but they had none.

Every time they tried to talk about something important, the next scene immediately shifted into sex, as if the story was saying “who cares about talking.”. I truly, deeply hate the “let’s have sex right after a heavy conversation” trope 😠😠 It might not bother some readers, but for me it feels completely wrong ❌❌

Imagine opening up about your feelings, your thoughts, maybe even your traumas—and the person you’re talking to acts as if the only way to handle it is by having sex. Really? That’s the solution? 😑😑 To me, that would feel like the other person doesn’t truly care about what I’m saying and my emotions doesn’t matter. Like the only thing they care about is the physical relationship. It makes the emotional moment feel dismissed rather than supported 🤮🤮

At the end of the day, what we got—or rather what we didn’t get—was a love story without many of the elements that actually make a love story compelling. Instead, we had minimal conversation followed by repeated sex scenes. The only mildly surprising element was Thomas being the bottom in the relationship 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

“I’m not leaving you. And I’m not letting you leave me. I can’t,” Aiden said. “I know myself. And I know if you deny me again, it will literally become my villain origin story. I will go full-on scorched earth, Tommy. I’ll become the monster you feared your sons would be.”

Another major issue was the lack of personality in both main characters. You could summarize them with just a few words. Aiden is angry and in love with Thomas. Thomas is self-pitying and in love with Aiden. Don’t get me wrong—what Thomas went through as a teenager was incredibly tragic. It was far too much trauma for a fifteen-year-old to carry 😭😭 But Thomas is portrayed as a certified genius with an extremely high IQ who studied psychology. He raised seven psychopaths with the goal of helping people who went through situations similar to his own.

So how did someone that intelligent never realize he was also a victim? 🤔🤔 I can understand his mindset during the first few years after the trauma. He was young and deeply hurt. But what about the decades that followed? They must have encountered cases similar to his many times. Using this as the reason he rejected Aiden for twenty years simply wasn’t convincing enough for me 👎👎

Despite all my frustrations and disappointments, I will admit that some of their scenes together still managed to put a small smile on my face 😊😊 This book could have been a masterpiece if handled differently. The potential was enormous—and sadly wasted. My last major issue was how unsettling it felt that nearly every female figure in their lives somehow ended up being either their surrogate or the egg donor for their children. There had to be better ways to handle this 🥶🥶

“We all want you two to figure your shit out so you can come home once and for all and stop living in the woods like some kind of antisocial survivalist nut-bag. Everybody just wants Thomas to be happy. You make him happy. Well, when you aren’t making him a short-tempered, day-drinking lunatic. But I think you and him being together forever would fix that.”

The one genuinely enjoyable part of the book was seeing the rest of the Mulvaneys and their spouses together. They’ve grown into such a big, chaotic, loving family 😍😍 I loved how Felix, Zane, and especially Noah truly see Thomas as their father. Watching the boys get furious on Thomas’s behalf was so satisfying. I laughed out loud during Noah and Adam’s phone call with Aiden, and when Felix and Asa suggested adopting Lola into the family. There were genuinely funny and heartwarming moments 🤣🤣

Even though the series went downhill with the last two books, the Necessary Evil series as a whole remains incredibly special to me 💕💕 I’m still glad I read all of them. These characters have carved out a permanent place in my mind. I would still recommend the series—just with the warning not to go in with sky-high expectations. It was an interesting journey. See you in the next review 👋👋