Reviews tagging 'Pedophilia'

The Sinner by Shantel Tessier

51 reviews

imskylow's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

This book is actually psychotic. Like I’ve read/listened to a lot of crazy books but this takes the cake by far. What on earth did I just spend 15 hours listening to? I can’t even recommend this to anyone like I could the first book. The first book was dark BDSM but this? This is that x100. It’s some of the most twisted, toxic, violent situations I have ever heard. I mean, I’m not going to sit here and lie and say that my imagination hasn’t wandered in this sort of twisted direction a time or two but I have never put it to paper or tried to make a believable story out of it. Realistically, a life like this would give someone so much mental damage and trauma!

Ellington is not only groomed and preyed upon by her step father growing up but also his friends. And then when Sin swoops in and kills get step father, “saving her”, he then proceeds to force sex on her while masked. His identity is hidden but this is the extent of their relationship initially. Somehow he’s able to call what her step father did “rape” but not  what he does. He thinks tying her down gagging her and giving her no way to say no is perfectly okay because she was made to belong to him? Psycho. This book still could have been dark, toxic and erotic if a safeword was included as well as aftercare. But no. Sin really just discards her after he’s rung everything out of her and she’s passing out. There’s almost 0% tenderness at any given point. There’s no halfway believable love between them. Ellie is just too abused to know any different and all the characters acknowledge that several times. Ellie honestly just needs to ditch everyone, move across the country and get extensive therapy and possibly go to rehab. You cannot honestly get me to believe Ellington would be a good sex therapist after her abusive mother (also a sex therapist???) knowingly allowing her daughter to experience CSA. ALSO, on that note, it’s was so effing unnecessary to have some of those CSA scenes on page. That gave me a massive ick. Shantel, babe, backpedal please. Goddamn, like what happened between the Ritual and this one?? Granted there were dubious things about the Ritual but it wasn’t ALL dubious like this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Pregnancy

amoreli's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Rape, Blood, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

Moderate: Pedophilia and Violence

mana_reads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Pedophilia, Torture, and Vomit

Minor: Infidelity, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, and Gaslighting

mynerdylibrary's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense slow-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? It's complicated

3.0

I knew this would be insane but I wasn’t fully prepared. It’s a fucking rollercoaster of fucked up shit. Do not recommend for anyone in a not-solid state of mind!! The dub-con spice was hittin’ tho. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, and Rape

hereiskyra'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

kitsuthebookworm's review

dark medium-paced

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

3.75

The last 40-50% saved it because I hated this book in the beginning, the plot came in way too late, and it's no match to The Ritual, it's not the CNC that phased me but the ratio of plot and spice is awful to the point where you don't enjoy the spice and end up skimming through it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Blood, and Death of parent

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

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

inkshadows's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Trafficking, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Alcohol

cinderellaeyes's review

dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

I went from absolutely not to completely engrossed. I’ve giving this a 4 star simply because of how it kept me freaking engrossed in the book.

There were a lot of red flag moments and just so many absolutely not moments but I just felt the need for Elli to have her winning moment. The things that she had to go through consistently as a kid through to adulthood was just absolutely disgusting and sad. Some men can be so vile. This book is extremely TW heavy, even more so than the first book.

I wouldn’t say the plot of the book is missing. It’s there, but the plot was mainly focused on Elli so we don’t really see much of the LORDS world as compared to the first book. In book one there was more exploration of this world but in this one, it was certainly more focused on the characters. 

The “love” is intense, psychotic and painful but who am I to yuck someone’s yum 😅 the spicy scenes tend to be really brutal, painful and exhausting and I think that’s just me pushing my limits and boundaries.

But overall? I would say it got my attention. It is absolutely and most definitely insanely dark and a vast difference in darkness from book 1 to 2.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Vomit, and Murder