Reviews tagging 'Death'

Credence by Penelope Douglas

70 reviews

lizardbet's review against another edition

fast-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

1.5

oh god oh no oh my oh god 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual assault, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Alcohol, Child abuse, Ableism, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Addiction, Stalking, Terminal illness, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Vomit

a_d's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Emotional abuse

Minor: Death and Death of parent

shaylee_reads's review against another edition

dark 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

Ratings:

Plot:⭐⭐⭐ /5 

Writing:⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5

Characters:⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5

Romance:⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5

Diversity:⭐ /5

Overall:⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5

Sadness:💧 /5

Spice:🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ /5
Tropes & kinks: Age gap's, BDSM elements (spanking and bondage), threesome, forced proximity and found family. 

Note: Please check the content warnings before reading this book. Also if this book isn't something you are into that is okay just don't hate on people who do like the book!

Credence by Penelope Douglas follows Tiernan De Haas, the only child of a famous film producer and his scarlet wife. When her parents suddenly pass Tiernan is sent to live with Jake Van der Berg, her father's stepbrother and only living relative and his two sons Noah and Kaleb who she has never met before in their isolated cabin in the mountains of Colorado. When the three of them take her under their wing and teach her how to survive on her own, Tiernan starts to find her place among them and begins to build something that she's never truly had… a family. 

This book is a dark romance and does deal with some triggering and taboo topics so please look into trigger warnings before reading it. I have the trigger warnings at the bottom of my review.

Ever since I started reading smutty romance I had heard about Penelope Douglas books everywhere so I decided to pick Credence up and I ended up thoroughly enjoying this book. 

One of the best aspects of this book is Penelope Douglas writing, it's very immersive and addicting. It really makes you feel like you are in the mountains of Colorado. Honestly I kinda wish I had read this book while camping because it would have made it that much better. The one problem with her writing that I have is the fact that she uses the word dive way too often and now everytime I see that work in her books I'm filled with an insane amount of rage. Seriously i've counted it, she uses the word dive 33 times!! That is a lot!! 

This book took me about a month to read due to the fact that this book is dark and it was hard to read a lot of it at one time. There's also not a lot is happening throughout and there was nothing that really makes you have to keep reading but it also wasn't boring at any points because there was no points where I was bored while reading this book but when a chapter would end it was easy to put it down and say you would read more later. 

The characters in this book are definitely going through some crap! As I was reading this book I would tab anytime I would think to myself "wow they need therapy" and as you probably guessed there was a lot, 24 to be exact and I actually kept count of how many times I tabed something for which character. Noah had 3, Tiernan had 5, Jake had 7, and coming in with a total of 13 tabs is kalab. Even though these characters definitely need therapy I did absolutely love them and loved seeing their character grow and get better especially Kalab.

The romance in this story is definitely taboo but I absolutely ate it up. I absolutely loved seeing Tiernan's relationships with Jake, Noah, and Kalab evolve into what they are in the end of the book. I loved seeing her create a family with them and seeing them all grow together. 

I know a lot of people don't like who she ends up with and I can see why they would prefer her with Jake or Noah because her relationship with them did seem more throughout and developed and I honestly feel like if we had gotten to see kalabs point of view throughout the whole book it would have developed their relationship a little bit more. So I completely understand why people didn't like her ending up with Kalab but I personally absolutely love her and Kalab together and I had even gone through and highlighted every thing Kalab had done throughout the book to show that he cared about her. 

I loved them being together because they are both similar people, they had both gone through trauma that had caused them to pull away from people and Tiernan was someone who Kalab could connect with without talking and he didn't need to talk for her to understand him. She also was someone who didn't push him to talk and was fine with just sitting there and not talking due to the fact that she didn't like talking either. She understood him. 

Also I do not agree with any of the things Kalab did to her in this book. 

This book is definitely a taboo book and is not meant for everybody so go into this book with that in mind and please if you don't like this book don't hate on people that do. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, and Suicide

Moderate: Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual harassment, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Blood

Minor: Bullying, Cancer, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use

giannelli21's review against another edition

dark 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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Death, Grief, and Sexual assault

Minor: Incest

abiigrl's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Cancer, Death, Death of parent, and Sexual content

jhaneveauguste's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Violence, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Rape, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Death, Confinement, and Animal death

katapultti's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.0

Aaaaa my first Penelope Douglas book and let me tell you it didn’t disappoint. I loved it and although the ending was a bit weird considering all that went on. The book also made me cry a little which is always good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Violence

sarahlikestoread's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Cursing, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Medical content, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Abandonment, Alcohol, Violence, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Pregnancy, Incest, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Child abuse, Cancer, Bullying, and Animal death

annalena15's review against another edition

dark fast-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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, and Sexual content

Moderate: Suicide, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Animal death, and Death

Minor: Blood

walskishere's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

3.0

tw: mention of r*pe, consent issues, ab*se

I wanted so badly for this book to be 5 stars. The writing was really solid, and the "world building" was extremely good. I have trouble seeing the world most times, and if I can, it's based on a real place I've been. Not this book. The scenes that were set were unique to me. This is the mark of good writing, for me personally.

I didn't mind the reverse harem at all. In fact, I really enjoyed it; having a female-centric harem instead of the usual male-centric harem was a nice change. I don't understand when people complain about a reverse harem, but it could be the gay in me jumping out lmao.

Tiernan had good development, along with pretty much all of the other characters as well. She opened up and learned to communicate and be vulnerable. The plot in this book was strong, I think, and it made me want to keep reading.

The things that really knocked this rating down were the ab*se and d*b con present in the book. There was also, in my opinion, a r*pe scene. I say "in my opinion" because I feel like some people, especially those who were rooting for Kaleb, night not consider multiple of his scenes r*pe. I had no problem with the age, to be frank. Tiernan was freshly 18, though, so if you're sensitive to age gaps, this might not be for you. 

Aside from Tiernan not ending up with whom I would have liked to see her (and who is best for her, no questions asked), almost every sex scene/sexual scene is prefaced by something really bad happening, or some emotional turmoil/emotional ab*se, most times from Kaleb, one or two from Jake. I don't think that she has a healthy relationship with Kaleb, and

I don't think it's realistic, or a healthy standard to set, that Kaleb suddenly decided to talk because he loves Tiernan. After 17 ish years of not speaking? No therapy? He just falls in love and suddenly is fine to speak? No.

I think Kaleb has too many issues to sort out by himself to be in a relationship with Tiernan.

The six weeks they're apart at the end to "Listen" isn't enough.

There's also the theme of Tiernan "fixing" Kaleb. That is not a woman's job. It's dangerous and annoying to perpetuate that. 

All of that aside, I would definitely try other Pen Doug books, and I think I will. Her writing is just so good. I think it was just those few specific themes in the book that really ground my gears a bit. Overall, a pretty decent book. Like I mentioned, it would've been a 5 star read had the above-mentioned issues not been present, or even as heavily present. They were continually too enforced.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual content