Reviews with content warning for Incest - Forbidden

I’m in the minority with this rating, and I don’t get it! I just don’t!
This book has got some impressive ratings. I know I have issues with incest themes in books, and I knew what this book was about when I started reading it (my curiosity got the better of me), but I swear I feel like I’m going crazy here. I can’t be the only one that found this book incredibly awkward and off-putting.
Let me start off by saying: this book is about incest, don’t get it twisted. I don’t care what any of the 5-star reviews say. It’s not about family, or society, or judgment, it’s about incest. And look, I get that there’s wildly controversial themes portrayed in literature. But the way incest is portrayed in this book simply does not sit right with me. It feels like it was heavily romanticized because it’s forbidden/illegal, but it’s illegal because it is literally incest.
The disturbing relationship between siblings in this book is shown is GRAPHIC detail. It feels wildly irresponsible that this book is marketed and labeled as YA.
Some of the reviewers of this book were able to get past the incest as a romantic trope, I simply could not. It made me super uncomfortable, and I’m surprised it doesn’t make others with siblings also uncomfortable.
I’ve been trying to be understanding in this review, but I figure I should just be honest. Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone would rate this highly. It’s terrible!
If we’re able to move past the incest as a romantic trope (big if), it would still be pretty hard to ignore the fucking writing. It’s so melodramatic! It’s so repetitive! This book is 400 pages of oh i want you but i shouldn’t but we kissed but we shouldn’t have and it. never. ends.
Also, I did not like the emotional manipulation at the end. The whole book is emotional manipulation. It makes you feel bad for the characters because it gives them trauma and tragic endings and at the end of the book, you might be emotional because of said trauma/tragedy the characters experienced, and you think, wow, this book made me feel so much, it must’ve been a really good book. FALSE! It is not good! It’s just emotional manipulation! (I think CoHo uses this in her books as well, but I won’t get into that.)
Anyway, this was a bad book and I didn’t like it.

Content Warnings

falconi's review

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dark emotional sad tense medium-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

4.0

Content Warnings

jodieellis's review against another edition

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challenging 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? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This book broke me... I cry as I write this review because it was just utterly heartbreaking.<spoiler ish>It showed the psychological affects of a broken home where children had to become parents which then blurred their sibling relationship<spoiler ish> I did find throughout the book it became quite repetitive in what was being written but I feel that reflected the characters repeative, long and challenging routine they endured. Overall, this book was superbly written and it's one I will forget.

Content Warnings