Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Sinner by Shantel Tessier

37 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?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical trauma, Stalking, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

feminist_icon_888's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

The Sinner is a wild erotic ride that isn’t for the faint of heart.

Let’s be honest, plot flow & writing quality aren’t Shantel’s best traits, don’t expect it coming into this or ANY LORDs book.

Heavy on the abuse and trauma Elli has suffered, there is a lot of pain in this book and a lot of moments where you want to hate the MMC (Sin), but you find reasons just like Elli that you can’t let him go (namely his pierced hoo-ha).

The trigger warnings on this read shouldn’t be taken lightly. The sinner is (as per the LORDs series) a twisted journey further into the world of the LORDs and the ending (as per Shantel’s style) continued to throw you right up to the epilogue. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

jaycait's review against another edition

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

2.5

This book had me pissed off literally the entire time. Struggled to finish. Probably a world record for the number of times the word cunt was used. Please tell me that the Sacrifice is better so I don't have to DNF the rest of the series. 🫠

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

spatterson7's review

dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Minor: Body horror, Confinement, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Pregnancy

kdb_0620's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.5

A deep dive into the dark romance genre. If this is your first dark romance series, I'd recommend to start somewhere else. This book is fast-paced, and it starts exactly that way too. It is not for the light-hearted, and if you thought the first book in the series, The Ritual, was bad then this one is definitely NOT for you!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

kyras_reads's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

 Once again, off to a wild start and it barely slowed down. Sin wasn’t your typical MMC. It took a lot longer to warm up to him than I anticipated. I liked Elli a lot sooner, though. She was the definition of damaged and had a really rich, albeit traumatic, backstory. 

I felt a lot more emotionally for Elli and all the ways in which she suffered through her childhood and young adulthood. I can’t imagine a lot of women would be able to function if they had gone through some of the things she had. Not that she was “thriving” or anything, I mean she had some terrible coping mechanisms and surrounded herself with some of the most toxic people… but she was able to maintain some relationships and she still managed to live her life. 

Honestly, I feel like the way Sin handled her wasn’t what we normally see with victims like Elli. Usually we see them healing and being shown a healthy love… instead this was more toxic love and “push through the pain” vibes rather than any healing. Sin loved her the only way he could and that looked different. But I will say, he absolutely accepted her the way she was and didn’t try to change a thing about her. 

There were a lot of characters that absolutely sucked but her mother deserved a special place in hell. I love the element of revenge and that Sin made sure everyone got what was coming to them in one way or another, whether that be death or torture. 

I’m not sure how Sin and Elli got to a healthy enough place to have a family so quickly but I loved that 18 year check-in. It’s always satisfying to see a conclusion and happy ending for characters who’ve been through so much to get there. 

Tropes: 

Obsessed MMC
Stalker/Secret Identity

Best Friends Brother

College Secret Society

Touch Her and Die

Kinks/BDSM

Spice:

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

fictionalized_bliss's review

dark emotional 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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

alis143's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

celeste77's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

4.0

This was a good, but dark read. This is about Elli's story.  This is definitely darker and with more triggers than The Ritual. Be sure to check your trigger warnings. If you're okay with the trigger warnings, then I definitely recommend this dark romance. This book definitely had more twists than I was expecting. From the very beginning, there were many intense, dark, kinky, and smutty scenes and they continued throughout the book. I did enjoy and loved the appearances of characters from The Ritual. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Violence, and Blood

Minor: Drug use

drjenn's review

challenging dark

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail