Reviews

The Sinner by Shantel Tessier

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laylabayla's review against another edition

5.0

O m g what a roller coster was this book it had me all over the place but i soo loved it can’t wait to read the next book and keep on living in the world of LORDS

imskylow's review against another edition

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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.

Content Warnings

stephaniejoceline's review

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dark 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

2.75

ks75's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad fast-paced

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

3.75

Ok, this was *much* darker than the Ritual and at times, really hard to get through. The plot kept twisting and I cared so much for Ellie that I had to make it through. 🖤