A review by danielle70
The Maddest Obsession by Danielle Lori

dark emotional medium-paced
I can't handle all this. I won't lie, I didn't really like Gianna all that much in book one and I almost didn't read this book because of that. I also didn't really like Christian (his eyes were always described as cold and that's not my thing--I need a hero with warm eyes for our heroine, which there was. Christian is just probably a partial sociopath too lol. 


So possible spoilers ahead I guess? Not really but I guess it is if you don't know the romance formula lol.
I feel like this book is broken up into three parts. At first Christian and Gianna have to be platonic and have fun trying to get under the other's skin and bicker and stuff. Then they start to act on their chemistry and there's lots of sex and them becoming comfortable with each other and try to wrestle with their growing feelings. The last part is more Christian being forced to open up.


I was shocked that I liked Christian so much but DANG. I looved getting to see how obsessed he was with Gianna.  Any time she was around him he was consumed by her presence. Fun fact: the descriptions of how he reacted when she pushed his buttons, made him jealous, or showed him affection made me melt into a little puddle on the floor. Body language/actions speak louder than words and he was obviously obsessed with her and I ate it up. He needed control so badly but, in reality, she had control over him haha. I don't want to analyze it too much but I definitely loved the whole thing of the hero being super obsessed with the heroine before she really even knows him and once he gets to know her better he's done for. I love that crap. Gianna was the curve ball in his life plans and it's just funny. 


We got to see Nico and Elena!! We got Gianna's POV from the night where Nico pushed her in the pool and then when Nico told Christian to back off of Elena afterwards lol. 


Tropes of this book: 

  • VERY possessive hero
  • opposites attract
  • grumpy/sunshine
  • forced proximity 
  • "it's always been you" or "I've always loved you"
  • "touch her and you die" 
  • morally grey hero (veery morally gray)
  • "I hate everyone but you"
  • mafia/mafia connections


SPOILERS 


Christian's gray morality was funny. He shot like three people for messing with Gianna in a way he didn't like. He would just flippantly kill people and I was cool with it. He had almost no human emotion except when it came to Gianna and his little brother and I loved it. People were scared of him because they could tell by his eyes that he didn't have the same amount of empathy as a normal person. Plus, the fact that he was planning on basically kidnapping her if she ever tried to run was hilarious. It made it even sweeter when he realized that he would've let her go if she would've been happier without him. What a gentleman lol

Christian and Gianna's childhoods were both heartbreaking. This book is a good representation of how childhood trauma follows you into adulthood. Gianna's story was heart breaking but then Christian's was holy crap how is he even somewhat mentally ok. Reading about how his mom would let those men do things to Christian for money and then one day she was too drunk and tried to have sex with her own son, mistaking him for a client was horrible, and THEN to find that she tried to cash in on Ronan (Christian's little brother) by sending men to him too, where Christian then promptly stopped that and killed the dude was horrible. Honestly, the little details like the U.S. quarter Christian kept under his pillow and was so proud to own as a kid that those gross pedophiles would mess with makes me the most upset. It was the only thing in the world that was his and they had to go and violate that too makes me sick. Obviously that's not the worst part of it, but I think it's just that the little details like that make it feel real and it makes me angry. 

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