Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Credence by Penelope Douglas

181 reviews

mmorevna's review against another edition

dark emotional slow-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

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Suicide attempt, and Death of parent

adamstristan's review

medium-paced

4.75

this was cray. would’ve given it 5 stars but there were a few times where i was a bit uncomfy 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Abandonment

Moderate: Sexual violence, Violence, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, and Vomit

calliefornia48's review

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, Rape, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Abandonment

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

hannah_joanne97's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

Very interesting and spicy. Not at all how I thought the story would go but I can’t say I’m mad about the ending. I think Tiernan put up with way to much with all of them, but especially Kaleb. I think Noah would have been a better choice but the heart wants what it wants.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Violence

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Death of parent, and Abandonment

stagemanaginger's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

2.0

It was as sexual as people said it would be, but it was very cringey to actually read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Incest, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, and Death of parent

sarahjxde's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and Death of parent

its_van_vulpen's review

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Stalking, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Alcohol

brittanylee0302's review

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

2.75

 This book was WOW & not like a good wow & also not really cause of the taboo~ The whole first 45% of the book I could have done without, I felt like it was worthless to the story. For all the hype this book gets for its spice, I'm not sure why it gets that hype. Spice is like 2.5/5 BUT the last 20% of this book was soooooooooooooooooooo good. Like this book had such potential and it literally just rolled itself right off Chapel Peak iykyk 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Violence and Suicide attempt

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, and Terminal illness

jasminealizae's review

challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

1.0

It was really disturbing to me that during the sex scenes, in their inner monologue, the characters would compare/describe the other as a child.

This excerpt comes from Kaleb's POV as he's raping the fmc Tiernan:
'...he squats down to slide her panties down her legs. And if he weren't looking at a woman's body, he might think a child was speaking to him with how innocent and sweet she sounded.'

Another scene between Tiernan and Kaleb, Tiernan thinks to herself:
'And last night, I didn't hold back in his bed, but today, I know I can't go there again, and he doesn't get it, because he's like a fucking child.' then proceeds to have sex with him?

Between the incest, rape, misogyny, illegal minor/adult relationship, physical and mental abuse it was hard to pretend to care about the subplots Penelope Douglas strung along when there wasn't erotica. 

Having spite-finished this book I can confidently say Penelope definitely just wanted to write smutty book about incest. Adding a back story for Tiernan and Kaleb regarding their absent parents, and Jakes shortcomings with love, was fluff as Jake and his kids waited for Tiernan to turn 18 so that they could legally engage in sexual activities with her. The addition of Cici Diggins, Terrance Holcomb and Mirai were extremely irrelevant and fell tremendously short in their attempt to keep us distracted from the hot mess that was this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

reproductive coercion

raven1358's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, and Pregnancy