Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Credence by Penelope Douglas

233 reviews

avery_29's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Terminal illness, Grief, Child abuse, Sexual harassment, Cancer, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Incest, Animal death, Bullying, Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Medical content, Mental illness, Rape, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Violence

lydialou419's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

The title could easily be Trauma: Everyone is Dealing Something and Trauma Bonding Through Fucking. 

Didn’t think I’d be into the whole sharing thing but it was done in a way that it was more of a progression than sharing per.

Made me wanna cry sometimes but was also nice and spicy. Honestly, I kinda wish it was a smidge longer to really explore everyone’s trauma. I’ve decided I am a huge fan of Penelope Douglas. This lady is WILD and I’m here for it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual assault, Animal death, and Rape

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Grief, and Toxic relationship

katiekaiser's review against another edition

1.0

Horrible. Don’t read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Sexual assault, Incest, Adult/minor relationship, and Rape

Moderate: Death, Abandonment, Death of parent, Child abuse, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Injury/Injury detail

minnielikesbooks's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

2.5

Content warnings galore. This is taboo, extremely graphic. Might as well be an abuse 101 instruction manual. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Ableism, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Physical abuse, Misogyny, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Suicide and Child abuse

booknerdcoco's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-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

3.0

Quite a challenging read.  Not so much because of the step family vibe, but more because of a young lady who was quite impressionable and ending up in the situation she was in. Very sad beginning. But the ending was quite sweet.  Don't get what everyone sees in Uncle Jake, I was rooting for Noah.

Book boyfriend:
Jake 2/5
Noah 4/5
Caleb 3/5

Spice: 5/5 🥵 
Plot: 3/5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Sexual content, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, and Child abuse

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Animal death, and Death of parent

Minor: Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Pregnancy, Bullying, Medical trauma, and Blood

michey2015's review against another edition

adventurous reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

This one was heavy. But I LOVED every second of it. I don’t think there was a time during the 470 pages that I thought parts could be removed. I felt a lot of feelings in this book. Will definitely be a reread!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Violence, Alcohol, Animal death, Bullying, Physical abuse, and Suicidal thoughts

ajanel98's review against another edition

challenging hopeful tense

4.75

Wow. Wow. Wow. That was the smuttiest book I have read so far. I didn’t enjoy it. The plot was good from my POV but I could understand how some could find it off putting. I’d for sure read it again!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Minor: Toxic relationship and Pregnancy

lizvalenz92's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Read this with an open mind and the underlying theme of trying to find oneself in life and in the world. It's very well written and some might think taboo even though there is no blood relation between the main characters and the age gap. Overall, emotional and engaging book for anyone looking for a challenge.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Sexual content, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Death of parent, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Bullying, Suicide, Violence, and Animal death

_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

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

0.5

My 69th read of 2023 and none of these hoes even bothered to do 69. Lame. Easily one the most deplorable books I've read, ever. Like this would've made an interesting book if this had been about Tiernan getting to know what it would be like to be a part of a family and everything was familial love and shit and not that Tiernan is gonna know the true meaning of family through fucking and Jake and co. weren't such weirdos. But at the same time, Tiernan's parents are so comically, exaggeratedly neglectful and emotionally abusive I can't take it seriously. Also this book has one of the worst things in fiction: the "money isn't everything" bullshit. That shit is more painful to read than an ovarian torsion pain. I think books where rich people are sad and pitiful are the worst. I like it when they're absolutely unhinged and messy lol.

Anyway, I hated that this book used an attempted sexual assault to titillate. I just don't find that hot, it was weird, and worse how Tiernan throughout this story wants to ease Kaleb's culpability and share half the blame to idk give her like control and give it nuance??? And even worse worse when it happens right after Tiernan was raped by Kaleb and then it horrifyingly segues into a sob story of Kaleb's childhood trauma and we have to like feel bad for this serial rapist and forget what he did to Tiernan??? Hello???

The writing in this is terrible; the way every complication was conveniently resolved by Jake or Noah knowing information that would absolve Kaleb of any would be wrongdoing, like if he's a baby daddy (HIPAA? we don't know her) or how also conveniently Kaleb turned out being a diarist and therefore all character development was lazily shown through that. The characterizations were even worse, just all-around levels of dross. (Jake disappears out of the story in a haphazardly done way though who cares bc he SUCKED. And Noah, who is the most normal one out of these clowns but the bar is in hell so, was just a doormat and spokesperson for the man-child nontalking troglodyte. He deserved better. Actually getting away from this horrendous family.)

I'm not too close minded and I don't moral outrage easily so the step-family incest angle of this did nothing to me and I could've overlooked it but the out of nowhere "romance", "love" with a sexual abuser and all the steps Penelope Douglas took to make it cute just enraged me. But then again, there are other awful sins this book makes like sexualizing pigtails (!!) and Penelope Douglas thinking having the attention of an ambiguous 40 year old when you're 17 is hot. Idk about anyone else but at 17 I DID NOT want some 40-something year olds sexual attention and now at 33 I don't want to feel 17 again thinking how nice it'd be to have some 40-something year olds advances. And there's sprinkled homophobic prison rape jokes, for good measure.

I enjoy smut but nothing written here was even good bc the characters were fecal matter awful and just everything that preceded it throughout the story was a nightmare. The ableism and sexism towards Tiernan, for example. This Jake dude wants her to "smile more" and be his little ray of sunshine and her maybe neurodivergence is weaponized against her but his animalistic son who doesn't WANT to communicate is ok? Yeah yeah. At some random point it's shown that Jake wanted to teach Kaleb ASL and whatnot but it was only to conveniently explain what a gesture Kaleb made before disappearing again meant. In conclusion, this is a mediocre and stupid and bad book. Save yourself and don't read it. Don't let curiosity kill the cat like I did.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Incest, Adult/minor relationship, Grief, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Cursing, Death of parent, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Ableism, Rape, and Suicide

Minor: Homophobia and Abandonment

caroline_bel's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Confinement, Death of parent, Child abuse, and Toxic relationship