Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Credence by Penelope Douglas

43 reviews

aakriti_sharma's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

3.0

Okay to start with..I really liked the cover of this book...and the volours used..its really soothing..and as far as the book goes...it was a challenging read for me...I mean it kept me engaged till the end...this is my 3rd Penelope Douglas book back to back and I would say her writing is amazing..even if you don't like the plot that much or it is predictable..you are hooked till the end..that's a huge accomplishment for an author...but it wasn't that good..I think it is the most steamy book I have read in this year till now...
I really struggled to imagine the character of Kaleb...like Noah, Jake and Tiernan was pretty easy..but Kaleb..nope I didn't find it easy to imagine her...

maybe beacuse he didn't have that much of role but suddenly becomes the main focus

..so yeah it was good but not that much..

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Death, Medical trauma, Rape, Gun violence, Adult/minor relationship, and Sexual harassment

zc2's review against another edition

dark funny lighthearted tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The book was overall good. I fully expected her and Noah to get together and when they didn’t I was a little sad. Kalebs character was good don’t get me wrong but I do feel as though some of his actions were uncalled for and ruthless. As far as Jake goes man….. he’s a dilf for sure but like sir that’s your niece. Not to mention Noah was there pretty much every time teiranan would ya know and she was just like yea no i don’t like you. Anyway the more trigger warnings the better I guess. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Death, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Rape, Cancer, Child abuse, Abandonment, Blood, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Sexual harassment, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Medical content, and Adult/minor relationship

beckyrae's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Incest, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Death of parent, Death, Addiction, and Cursing

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Alcohol

Minor: Blood, Cancer, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

calliefornia48's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

DNF at 56%. Read the trigger warnings and reviews on this one before picking it up, or better yet, just bypass it altogether. FMC literally gets spit on and has the word "SLUT" written across her forehead by one of the men in this book...sorry fam, after that I put the book away. 

Look, I'm no stranger to taboo romance, age gap, step-whatever, dub-con, etc...but the content in this book was clearly abuse masking as romance. I ended up getting a spoiler on who Tiernan ends up with and some of the content that occurs later in the book and I just could not bring myself to continue reading.

Basically this 17-year-old girl named Tiernan goes to live with her father's step-brother and his 2 asshole sons after her parents kill themselves. Her whole life she was ignored and unwanted by her parents, so she is lacking social skills, and does not know how to process emotions and my guess has un-diagnosed reactive attachment disorder. Ok so she's in the wilderness of Colorado and starts lusting after these 3 men and they decide to be possessive pieces of shit and abuse/threaten to abuse her, but because it's attention, she is like "well at least they aren't ignoring me! I must be in love!”

Books like this make me so mad, because it's an extremely slippery slope masking abuse as romance. We saw it with Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey, and Credence falls in that same category. I hate the idea that someone is going to read this and think "oh this is normal behavior in a healthy relationship, I'm going to keep going with this person." It's very uncomfortable. 

Officially done with Penelope Douglas, Birthday Girl was my first read and once I got over the book hangover, I decided that one had a lot of red flags as well.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Violence, Toxic relationship, Rape, and Abandonment

Moderate: Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Death of parent, Suicide, Grief, and Sexual content

kendralyris's review against another edition

dark medium-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? Yes

1.5

I finished it, so there’s that. The writing is reasonable and the pacing is not bad, but it’s trauma porn and the mountain of content warnings are probably enough, like probably you can just read the content warnings and not miss anything significant. 

The main character is an underage girl already dealing with grief and trauma when her long lost family takes her in and proceeds to pass her around, sexually. The eventual love interest is the sexually depraved, mute, and traumatized cousin of the main character, the last of her three family members to have sex with her. There is very little redeeming about any of the characters and the MC’s arc can me summed up as Stockholm syndrome.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Ableism, Gun violence, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

saikox's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This really isn’t a book for everyone. It deals with some pretty messed up themes (mentioned in my content warnings) and it’s pure graphic smut in most of its chapters. 

Personally, not paying attention to the messed up, I genuinely enjoyed this book and most probably re-read it sometime. That ending has got to be the best happy ending I’ve ever read honestly and I LOVED it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, Death of parent, Grief, Alcohol, Cursing, Incest, Mental illness, and Sexual content

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Gun violence, and Violence

Minor: Blood, Drug abuse, and Pregnancy

scoops_stories's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

😬😬😬

Okay so I did know what this was before I read it. I knew about the storyline and all the triggers. I’ve even read Penelope Douglas before.

What I didn’t know was how boring this would be.

This book reminded me why I enjoy PWP in fan fiction. You get all of this smut without the ridiculous story to justify it. It seriously took 50% of filler to get to any 🌶. 

Then to end it all the heroine ends up with HIM?! 

This gets 2 stars purely for chapter 23.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Incest, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Bullying, Child abuse, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual assault

finnickdeservedbetter's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Misogyny

Moderate: Blood, Confinement, Pedophilia, Sexual harassment, Violence, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Physical abuse

Minor: Abandonment, Child abuse, Animal death, Death of parent, Cancer, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness

Yeah, I'll be honest...the LI is

an abusive rapist

who's unlikable in ever single way. "He

raped

you? Well boo hoo, his mommy didn't love him enough." I like dark and sometimes taboo romance but not the glamorization and romanticization of SA and domestic abuse. This honestly should have just been a dnf but I wanted to give it a full review with a star rating. The .5 is honestly just for the cabin and horses at this point. I was recommended Birthday Girl and this by a friend (I know you're reading this Kenzie) and liked BG a lot so I thought I would like this too. No. Just no. It wasn't even the

full on incest

that bothered me. The problem was the gigantic bag of skid marked gym socks called "Kaleb". He can chew rocks.

mariamlyxoxo's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Grief, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Child abuse, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Incest, Physical abuse, Vomit, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Sexual assault, and Sexual harassment

eviegbaker's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

fucking weird. found via tiktok and felt like i had to finish it just for the experience. never again - might have to stay clear of penelope douglas 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Violence, Incest, Gun violence, and Adult/minor relationship