Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Sinner by Shantel Tessier

106 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

bookedupchick's review

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

iida_a's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

avgreen's review against another edition

Story was boring, not as good as first book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

alex_bousquet's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

kpress15's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious 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

2.5

This was sex with a sprinkle of plot. It also just felt like one bad thing after another happened to our FMC. I wanted to like it more. - the spice was spicy! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

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

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

emmalou0411's review

dark 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? No

2.0

There was no plot. I normally love a book with lots of smut, but this book had literally nothing else.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, and Murder