Bad Intentions by Mila Kane
454 pages • ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ • 🌶️🌶️🌶️¾
Bully romance: the genre where boys have the emotional range of a teaspoon and work it out by tormenting the girl they’re already in love with. Very enlightened. Very mature.
Here, we’ve got the classics.
Bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Awkward nerd.
Coach’s daughter.
“Love” at first sight, followed by 300+ pages of psychological dodgeball.
Lily is the sheltered, rejected nerd, wrapped in bubble wrap by her firmly middle-class parents who gave up their dreams because she was a whoopsie baby. That accidental-baby guilt coats everything she does. It hangs over the story like full-fat ice cream that leaves a waxy film on your tongue. You don’t forget it, and after a while, it’s less flavor and more… residue.
Her dream is simple: get as far away as possible, go to university on the opposite coast, and finally live a life that feels like hers instead of a repayment plan. That craving for independence is one of the most compelling parts of the book, even when the plot is doing the most.
Cayden is the textbook broken bad boy from the bad part of town. Trauma, abuse, cruelty, all wrapped in one broody, ragey package. Underneath it all, he just wants to be loved, of course, but he expresses that obsession with Lily in wildly unhealthy ways. When his past comes for her, his response is violent, dangerous, and exactly what you’d expect from a “dark” high school bully romance.
And that’s the thing. This is a high school hockey bully dark romance that stuffs in every single cringe cliché it can find, then goes back for seconds. Secret pain, cruel pranks, miscommunication, self-sacrifice, martyrdom, the whole buffet.
Which leaves me with the question I always circle back to with bully romance: was it worth it? Are 350-ish pages of humiliation, angst, and emotional gut-punches really balanced by maybe 100 pages of healing and happiness?
When you see that ratio in print, it hits different, doesn’t it? Because no. And no one in their right mind should tolerate that. Yet so many people do, on and off the page.
Stephen Chbosky wrote in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Filter this book through that lens and it stops being just “dark romance fun” and starts feeling a lot more disturbing. Bully romances like this don’t just flirt with that idea, they roll around in it.
So:
✅ Compulsively readable
✅ Emotional depth, especially around guilt and trauma
✅ Spice that serves the story instead of replacing it
But also:
❌ Heavy on cliché
❌ A lot of suffering for a relatively small window of joy
❌ A relationship that, in real life, would be a walking red flag parade
3.75 chili peppers for the spice, 4 stars for the execution… and a lingering unease that might stick with you longer than the happily ever after.
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