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A review by now_booking
Sick Heart by J.A. Huss
dark
sad
medium-paced
3.0
This was an okay read. It IS dark and not being much of a consumer of super dark romance, I can’t compare it’s darkness to other dark romances. Suffice to say it leans and rests heavily on the worst of child abuse (of all sorts) throughout the book and so one definitely needs to approach this with care.
The premise of this is that both Cort and Anya have been slaves since childhood and when Cort wins a fight against the odds, he wins Anya and decides he wants to keep her. But that’s not in line with the plans of his owner.
For me, I wasn’t really feeling the emotional connection of the romance- to me it wasn’t believable or revealed in a convincing way. Neither of the main characters’ internal monologues matched the sudden apparent deep feelings they suddenly had for each other. I didn’t even particularly feel the erotic angle much- the issue is that because of the theme of sexual exploitation and the characters resultant attitude to intimacy, the intimate scenes didn’t feel sexy- they felt… not forced, but just there to be there. The spicier scenes were in fact purposely drug-influenced to get through them so it was just… uncomfortable to read. I also found the writing style kind of repetitive- like we get it, everyone in the book has gone through immense child abuse and is not expected to survive- I feel like this message was repeated almost every page as though the reader might forget the horrors these children were going through. I thought this could have been better edited and the repetition could have been sacrificed for more emotion-building between Cort and Anya and even between Cort and Maart, his best friend.
Overall, this wasn’t horrible. I just didn’t love it but I’m sure it has an audience.
The premise of this is that both Cort and Anya have been slaves since childhood and when Cort wins a fight against the odds, he wins Anya and decides he wants to keep her. But that’s not in line with the plans of his owner.
For me, I wasn’t really feeling the emotional connection of the romance- to me it wasn’t believable or revealed in a convincing way. Neither of the main characters’ internal monologues matched the sudden apparent deep feelings they suddenly had for each other. I didn’t even particularly feel the erotic angle much- the issue is that because of the theme of sexual exploitation and the characters resultant attitude to intimacy, the intimate scenes didn’t feel sexy- they felt… not forced, but just there to be there. The spicier scenes were in fact purposely drug-influenced to get through them so it was just… uncomfortable to read. I also found the writing style kind of repetitive- like we get it, everyone in the book has gone through immense child abuse and is not expected to survive- I feel like this message was repeated almost every page as though the reader might forget the horrors these children were going through. I thought this could have been better edited and the repetition could have been sacrificed for more emotion-building between Cort and Anya and even between Cort and Maart, his best friend.
Overall, this wasn’t horrible. I just didn’t love it but I’m sure it has an audience.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Incest, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Trafficking, and Violence
Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Suicidal thoughts