Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Heavy Crown by Sophie Lark

12 reviews

hapalyn's review against another edition

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dark emotional 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? Yes

4.0

Tense throughout the entire book! The ending set up the spin-off super nicely (but also has me stressed out haha)

I love Yelena and Sebastian was a surprisingly complex character.
I’m going to miss Enzo!!
 
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booksalacarte's review

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

2.75

Heavy crown 2.75⭐️3.75🌶️


Mafia Romance
Dark Romance
Dual POV
Morally grey couple
Insta-love
Rival families
Secrets


For a finale of a series this was a complete bust. Generally a finale brings people together and this book just didn’t. It did a good job of bringing past couples into the story, probably more than any other book, but not in a good way. 

The insta-love was just that, with not a lot of relationship development. There was a little bit too much dub con for me. The situation put the FMC at a huge emotional disadvantage making the scene borderline emotionally abusive. Just yuck.

The book was a sloppy ending to this series and felt like it was just to set up the kingmaker series. There is no emotional resolution for this generation, only setup for 3 kids in the next one. 




Thank you NetGalley and Sorcebook Bloom Books for an Advanced eReader Copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
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nineinchnails's review

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

3.0

i am very VERY conflicted. i was not looking forward to this book at all (i really just wanted to read so i could start kingmakers) but it took me by surprise and i was really enjoying it for the most part, despite how much i hate instalove. i still didn’t care much about their relationship but i liked the characters individually, seb more than yelena (who felt quite one dimensional). however, i think this book completely ruined
sebastian’s character after the wedding
. i would go as far as to say most of the characters from the previous books suffered a character assassination here, notably dante. 

the same dante who was
fiercely overprotective of his siblings refused to attend his brother’s wedding (but changed his mind and dropped in at the last minute) then abandoned him in his quest to avenge their father’s death
? this feels so far removed from the dante in aida’s book. aida is probably the only significant character who hasn’t changed for the worse in this book and i loved all her scenes. nero (and camille) also seemed very different, even from his own book let alone the first in the series. 

the writing did get a little repetitive when seb and yelena were thinking about each other/their relationship but i hate instalove so i don’t think i was ever gonna be obsessed with their romance. i think the worst part was how
sebastian treated her after their wedding - i love dark romance and can deal with cruelty from MCs but it just felt wildly out of character from sebastian
. it was jarring to read and honestly put me off him a little. i also felt like yelena’s characterisation was all over the place, but we only had this book to get to know her so it’s not as easy of a judgement to make as it is for seb. 

i think the part i hated most was
her and adrian becoming estranged. i get that it’s a set up for the spin off series but i really hate when close siblings have their relationship ruined. even him turning on her so fast felt strange since they seemed so close in the beginning
. i do love angst but i was really hoping it would be resolved at least in the epilogue.

all that being said, the side plot really captured my attention and i am excited for the spin off series. i do wish
enzo hadn’t been killed off though, it was nice to see a dad in a mafia series be loved so completely by his children
. i don’t usually read mafia books but i haven’t seen that much in the ones that i have read. i think the prose was improved from the older books in the series, though it was repetitive at times, and i liked the interactions with the other characters (aida the most) even if they aren’t the same as they used to be. i can understand that they all have different priorities now but just as a family unit the gallos seem so different to the way they did in the first book, a lot less united and it makes the whole book feel bleak when it’s supposed to have a (technically) happy ending.
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midnightrose_reads's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Fantastic action packed ending to the Brutal Birthright series!

However…..

Dante’s character somewhat disappointed me in this book. Don’t get me wrong, he does show up for Sebastian and Yelena’s wedding, but in the heat of the battle  towards the end he’s not there. Obviously he explains to Sebastian why at one point in the narrative, but I have a hard time believing a man like Dante would not want to help get retribution for his father’s murder. Quite frankly, I never believed he would be truly happy moving somewhere like Paris, as he did in his book Bloody Heart.
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apolen's review against another edition

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4.75

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__romancereader__'s review against another edition

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

4.0

I loved the f*cking ending of this book the epilogue was everything i needed i do wish that the epilogue was longer and we got to meet all the characters from the previous book but we didn’t 🥲 i was kinda bored for the beginning of the book the book didn’t get interesting for me till revenge was the only thing the main male character Sebastian could see thats when the book got interesting for me you do see allot of the main characters from this book and the previous books in the brutal birthrights series kids they all have at least one kid except one couple that you don’t even see or hear about in this book i hope they did have a kid in a different book that I don’t know about the book moves kinda fast and i did enjoy that the female main character was a virgin and lost her virginity to the male main character and the male main character only there is another series after this one about the couples from the brutal birthrights kids so that’s gonna be interesting to read finally i do think strongly that Stolen heir is my favorite book in this series and idk if it was just me but at certain scenes of this book i kept thinking of all he’ll ever be by willow winters if you read both books you might see some similarities not allot but still some or maybe it was just me that saw similarities but anywho i rated this book a 4 stars⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and only because i did not enjoy it until the ending i feel that got the last book in this series it could’ve been way better but i still enjoyed it though 
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misswirum's review

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

2.25

Sadly, this is the series worst and most boring book. Both Yelana and Sebastian is boring af and I don't understand why the author would end the series like this.

2,25/5⭐️
2,5/5📝
1/5🌶
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amanda_reads13's review

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emotional 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? Yes

3.0

I enjoyed the evolution of Seb's character throughout this series. You see him go from an outsider in his own family, to the one in charge. In each book, you get snippets of who Seb is becoming.  In this book you see him come to embrace his role in the family. 
At first Seb comes off as selfish and it leads to irrevocable damage to his family. Throughout most of the book he puts his family in danger, first due to infatuation and then his desire for revenge.

Yelena was controled by her father, she was a pawn in his schemes against the Gallos. She put all of her faith in her brother to have her back, but she was ultimately betrayed by the one person she trusted the most. You could see how she truly loved Seb, but she could have told him the truth at any point, maybe then his family would have been better prepared at the wedding. 

That scene in the dungeon... He said she could saystop at any point, but he made it very clear that to earn back his trust she had to allow him to do whatever he wanted to her. That was messed up. She was psychologically and emotionally abused her whole life, and he basically did to her what every other man has. What he did was emotional blackmail and, really, could be considered rape. 

I LOVE seeing the other characters come back through this book and being able to see how their relationships have progressed. BUT you also get the sense that the family is fractured and the damaged suffered will forever keep the family members on seperate paths. This is solidified in the epilogue when you have no mention of Aida, Dante, or Nero. It insinuates that Dante has remained estranged from his family, Aida and Cal have gone clean, and Nero is probably running his garage. 


Tropes: Mafia, instalove, revenge, waring families
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sdupont's review

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dark emotional mysterious 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

Heavy Crown similar to Savage Lover for me in that I felt we didn’t have enough time with the couple to really feel their connection grow and build- even less so for this book as the couple dated for such a short period of time. I struggled to get into this book but the second half was interesting with all of the action between the battling mafia families. I would recommend this entire series.
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weelasswithabook's review

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adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

CW, gun violence, death of a loved one, dismemberment, torture, misogyny, abusive parental relationship, historical DV, SA

⭐ Hidden motive
⭐ Mafia romance 

Ooh this had me full of anxiety. So much happened in this book 👀 character deaths that broke my little heart, betrayal, sadness, a hero with such responsibility he didn't want nor need thrust on him, a heroine made to choose between her family (tbh they were dicks so I'd have bounced) and someone she loved. 

Uggghhhhh this was just the perfect end to the series and Kingmakers (which I read first for some reason 🤣) is such a natural progression which just flows from Heavy Crown to The Heir. 

10/10 would read again. 
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