Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Broken Bonds

Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Broken Bonds by J. Bree

61 reviews

spookynat's review against another edition

emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

overall really solid. it just needs a good copyedit. the story itself was pretty emotional and tense for a lot of the novel, as oli tries to keep a tight grip on herself against her bonds trying to both break her down and (later) try to be gentle with her (well, some of them anyway).

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jellyfists's review against another edition

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dark 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? No

2.5

Fun book for when you don't want to think too hard. All of the dudes suck majorly except Atlas, really really hoping he doesn't end up letting me down as well in the sequel. Overall it would've been so much better if it wasn't so long. So many pages and so little happened between them. Still had a good enough time that I'll be reading the sequel though.

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amenmeit's review

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dark emotional 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

2.0

This book was sold to me as a "Spicy" book by so many reviewers and friends. The only actual coupling is non-consensual and not in a hot way. And I immediately hated most of the reverse harem for treating their "center" like shitake. Not good enough to get me to read the rest of them or recommend it to anyone.

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sacredhearthbookreviews's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Loveable characters? No

1.0

Are y'all ready for a different side of me? No but seriously, I normally stick to posting about books I love, but I read a book that has been on my TBR forever and I had high hopes for it. I love the cover and I thought this would be a nice little spicy read. Little did I know this would be one of my most hated books. If you like this book, maybe skip my review? You've been warned.

Yeah umm no. Nope, nuh uh, 1 star. Where are the trigger warnings? I thought maybe it was just because I listened to the audiobook, but nope. I just checked the Kindle edition and there's none. From what I can tell there's none on the author's website either. There's sa, literal sa, in this supposedly spicy book, and that's the extent of the smut, a r* scene. F* this book.

Olli, our main character is insufferable. Constantly whining, complaining and unnecessarily using the word freaking every other sentence. She's 19 but acts like a child.

The book feels so repetitive and goes nowhere. The main character is supposedly super powerful and scary but has to hide it all away and can't tell her fated bonds a single word about any of it. They all treat each other horribly and even the one guy who's decent, I'm sitting here wondering when he's gonna flip. Toxic with a capital T all but the one.

The r* culture just being accepted and acceptable is beyond wild. The fact that Olli is sa'd and the author goes above and beyond to convince us and the characters that it wasn't actually sa makes me so mad. The author could have done something really good with that narrative and spoken to what a victim of sa goes through, but instead gaslights Olli, her bonds, and us.

Among other triggers is k*dnapping, emotional ab*se, physical ab*se, mis*gyny, g*slighting, t*rture, domestic ab*se, cl*ssism, false impr*sonment, conf*nement, v*ctim blaming, and probably a whole lot more I'm forgetting.

On the language side of things, "freaking" appears 179 times, "b*tch" 55 times, "f*ck" 466 times, "sh*t" 181 times, "a*shole" 62 times, "d*ck" 34 times, and "d*mn" 63 times.

Originally this was just meh, like a train wreck I couldn't look away from. I was alternating between 3 and 2 stars. After finding out there's no trigger warnings whatsoever, it's a 1 for me. This may just be my new hated book on the same level as Haunting Adeline. I picked up book 2 from Libby because apparently I like torturing myself. I thought it had to get better. We'd turn around the plot on the r*ist and do something about him, but no. She's just crying over her freaking leather boots she couldn't live without that she lost in book 1. Like what?

Olli is a total mean girl, not a girl's girl.

The only good thing going for this book is that the cover art is gorgeous. So maybe we should stop judging books by their covers. Smh.

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palomabbrackin's review

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dark slow-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.5

this shit was ASS
this was not a good book for so many reasons
TW: SA, violence, EA

ok from the get go the writing in this book was very poorly edited, with many grammar mistakes and spelling errors that were just a bit infuriating. ok, not the worst thing, sometimes a given with independently published authors

but then…we get into the structure of the story. of which there is none. no plot, just interactions and this weird mystery over who and what the character is and what their past entails. I cannot begin to explain how annoying this was, and i love a good mystery mc

then we get into the men that are “bonded” with this character (the whole “why choose” aspect of this book), and this is really the icing on the cake. there is absolutely no reason why I would want any of these men except MAYBE one who isn’t even really a part of the story until somewhere towards the end. let me tell you why each mmc is bad:

- gabe: is a doormat and has no personality through the entire book and his only purpose is to be bodyguard and liaison for the other men
-north: controlling POS who does not give a fuck about the wants and needs of fmc, literally has her get a tracking chip put into her neck???? literal EA
- nox: literal r*pist. huh??? and you expect me to want to like him in the next book??? not to mention he’s her teacher???
- gryphon: doesn’t interact at all with fmc, until he does, and then he doesn’t again. like he does not care, i am convinced. also why should i care????
- atlas: the only one i gave a shit about and he was kinda cringe /:

the ending of this book was so hastily written and the action made no sense to me and i still don’t understand fmc’s power. like is it nightmares? is it death? suffering? I don’t know. all I can say is that I have more questions than answers.

i like torturing myself with bad books so best believe i will be reading the next book in this series. i love wasting my time. who knows, maybe ill dnf.

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psychnp's review

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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shinyfox's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

3.5

I had forgotten how annoying the fmc is in this book. Whining and always mentioning her power and that she can't wait to run away, and boy they'd be sorry if she could use her power... very repetitive. But I remember the rest of the series getting better, here's hoping I remember right!

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