Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Credence

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.

Content Warnings

britrcup's review against another edition

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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? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book is dark. It's taboo. It's spicy. It was like watching a car crash, I wanted so badly to look away but I couldn't. I enjoyed the endgame but I do think a lot of the dark/taboo parts of the book could have been cut out. The complex trauma is written really well and overall the plot is okay. If you are a fan of dark (and I mean really dark) romances and can look past the content warnings the romance might be worth it for you. This is not a book for you if you are looking for fluff.

Content Warnings

bf9288's review against another edition

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challenging dark medium-paced

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

2.0

I decided to give this book a try because I really liked Birthday Girl. Honestly this book was not my cup of tea. Most of the book had me feeling like “what the actual hell”. I would describe this as bullying to lovers and I’m not with that. Kaleb was not nice to Tiernan at all. He spit on her and everything . there are so many things wrong with this book. Please check the triggers.

Content Warnings

alireads's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.25

Content Warnings

kendralyris's review against another edition

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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.

Content Warnings