Reviews with content warning for Bullying - The Sinner

Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

The Sinner by Shantel Tessier

25 reviews

book_lover_irl's review against another edition

I just can't do it. I cannot finish The Sinner by Shantel Tessier. I knew it was a dark romance but this is something else. I've read plenty of dark romances and enjoyed most of them. I read Still Beating by Jennifer Hartman, Pretty Little Savage by Lucy Smoke, Riches to Riches by Ames Mills and Mindf*ck Series by S.T. Abby. Those had dark themes and tropes. The Sinner feels like it is ENCOURAGING violence against women, pleasure of a man above the humanity of a woman, and straight up awful misogyny - expecting women to quietly slip back into the 1950s. with zero rights over their own bodies.

I guess I have discovered a trope I cannot condone -- dub con and consensual non-consensual. I might also have an intolerance for bully romances. Previously I didn't think I had many TWs, now I know better.

I cannot get on board with the violence that continues to happen to poor Ellington. Every time I think perhaps Sin / Easton is mellowing a teensy bit to be a less despicable human being (not even good -- just less horrific), he proves that violence in the name of his s3xual pleasure is king and he has zero regard for Elli. I get that, in theory, someone who has been abused so severely for years may have a skewed idea of what intimacy and pleasure should be. However, I cannot understand why Sin wouldn't at least attempt to give Elli pleasure in a way that isn't straight up considered sexual assault and abuse. Try BDSM and drop the need to make her bleed and cry. If Elli is never shown a different way to experience pleasure, how will she know if she does or does not like it?

I know my opinions will be unpopular and I totally get it if you love this book and these tropes. I'm not here to yuck your yum. I'm simply unable to hop on that train and enjoy the ride. I really wanna know how The Sinner ends, but not enough to keep reading the book. 2025 is supposed to be the year that I embrace DNF if a book isn't for me, so here I am. Cheers to The Sinner being my first DNF for 2025.

Stars: 0 -- DNF for me

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ -- according to BookTok. I couldn't get past the violence.

POV: Dual

HEA: No clue. DNF

Cliffhanger: No clue. DNF

Tropes: Bully romance, touch her and d!e, friends to lovers

INSTAGRAM: @Book.Lover.IRL

STORYGRAPH: Book.Lover.IRL
GOODREADS: Book_Lover_IRL

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I loved this book

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I really liked this book

⭐️⭐️⭐️ I liked this book

⭐️⭐️ Meh… bored or annoyed

⭐️ Seriously? Not worth it

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ INFERNO. P@nty melting

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Blazing hot

🌶️🌶️🌶️ Now we’re talking

🌶️🌶️ Meh… uninspired missionary

🌶️ Does weak foreplay count?

Content Warnings

paoitz's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Content Warnings

snowflake_20's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

My number 1 🩷

Content Warnings

meowrie's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Yikes

Sometimes I think a book can be trying to add too much darkness just to see how much we can take. Elli was sexually assaulted by every man in this book. Seriously. And she blames her high sex drive, which was only there because she was groomed by her stepfather and then raped her whole life. But anyway.

I couldn't really enjoy the spice because it was mostly rape.
The story was interesting though. There was a ton of stuff happening and the LORDS world is interesting enough. But Elli suffered so much that it was hard to get any enjoyment out of the book. I know this is a dark romance, and the majority of books I've listened to this year were labeled dark. My favorite was Under Your Scars. So I can deal with dark romance. But there has to be something redeeming going on. And Sin just wasn't a good guy anywhere. Not good enough, I guess. He was all "I'm a savior" but came in too late. He has cameras but only saw things after they happened. He didn't let her get revenge, he killed everyone. And then he tried to martyr himself like that makes it all better. But overall, it was a pretty good book.

The audio was barely tolerable though. Laurie West is great as always. She puts a lot of emotion into her work and it's needed in this role. But Peter Alden was not the voice I would have chosen for Sin. Like, at all. I won't be mean about it but this is not the voice of a hot, 20 year old killer. It's the voice of his accountant uncle.

Content Warnings

hilary89's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

Basically just trauma porn with a super convoluted plot. I'm not sure if it's because I listened to the audiobook rather than reading it, but midway through I totally lost the plot and spent most of the rest of the book confused. The only reason I stuck with it was I had to many questions that needed answers (and I guess they were answered by the end, sort of). It was especially irritating because the book was ridiculously long (17+ hr) and it took forever to get any answers.

The only character that received any real development was Ellie... it was never explained why Sin is the way he is and how he became so shitty.

Lots of sex... all exploitative and very little of it consensual. That's not really a dealbreaker for me, but it got super repetitive.

Basically, it was a book trying desperately to push dark romance/erotica boundaries but it was all just poorly executed.

The only side character in this universe I'm interested in is Tyson and he's the focus of the next book so I might still give it a try, but if it's as much of a mess as this one I'll just DNF and cut my loses.

Content Warnings

bookedupchick's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

avarlow's review

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challenging mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I feel like the series has the potential to balance smut and plot but this book did not do that very well. I fount the smut to be overly distracting in a lot of scenes as if it didn’t really belong but was just put in anyway. I did think the plot was pretty interesting and is what ultimately lead me to finishing the book. I feel with the first book kept me guessing a bit more where as this one was a bit more predictable.

Content Warnings