Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Brutal Obsession

Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Brutal Obsession by S. Massery

31 reviews

vulcanlibrarian's review

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dark emotional mysterious 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

5.0

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madlereads's review

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

🖤 Dark bully romance
🏒 college hockey
🔪 enemies to lovers
😱 stalker(s)

“Greyson.”
“Grey,” I automatically correct. She narrows her eyes. I shrug, going for nonchalance. “Violet and Grey? Makes sense to me.”

I'm conflicted about how I feel about this...but I think I did enjoy some parts more often than not?

Greyson basically ruins Violet's life one fateful night when he speeds down a seemingly empty road and crashes into Violet's car. With her leg shattered, her dreams to be a principal ballerina is up in the air. And since fate's so funny, turns out Grey is the new hotshot hockey player at her college now since Violet missed out on a whole semester and he's out to get her for "ruining his life."

Yep. He totally believed at the very beginning that she ruined his life for outing him originally as the guy who hit her car. Does he ever apologize? Nope. 🤣🤣 The author wasn't kidding when she said he's not gonna grovel.

Greyson is 100% a red flag and suffers from rich boy-itis of always being right and gets what he wants. He goes out of his way to humiliate Violet and harass her and puts her in these situations with the threat of breaking the NDA over her head. It's a dark bully romance so I expected most of his psychotic obsessive behavior. (But I did want just a little explicit apology teehee.)

Though he was very infuriating, I was hooked because of the story. And I eat up the psychotic asshole finding out he has *feelings* every time. That process is so funny. Like when Grey gets jealous? Phew. What a silly cutie (who's a little violent towards his bros.)

Violet was just okay as a heroine. I was rooting for her to be more toxic to Greyson 🤣 like when he toys with her by kissing her dance team enemy, I wanted her to fuck his teammate 🤣 She was fine though. She's not like total doormat. I think her just tolerating Grey/ignoring him riled him up just the same cause he's obsessed with her attention.

Plus Violet discovered her dark and kinky side with Grey 🤭 so can't blame her mind on focusing on that instead of "Oh no I'm being bullied." So yea the dynamic was entertaining here and there.

Their relationship did turn into something kinda cute despite *everything*. And I did really like their sweet moments which with some context, was Grey being sweetly psychotic. There were a lot of quotes I loved! But I wasn't 100% really sold on their emotional connection or their love really. Grey did show subtle remorse and he did show his care for Violet but it needed more juice. Like as Violet wondered once, why her out of everyone?

The final conflict kinda felt meh to me too. It was external forces at play targeting Violet. But it felt thrown in there despite hints from the start. I think their ends/motivation was too convenient.

So do I recommend? It's a maybe! If you like that non-remorseful bully dynamic go for it!
I think expecting that crazy obsessive psychopath Ryat Archer from the Ritual and Killian Carson from God of Malice energy, maybe not?

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lucycharm9's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Honestly some people might say Gray is really fucked up as he run away from the scenem, tried to frame it on another girl, never once groveled for what he did to Violet, etc. It is really refreshing to read a true asshole who owns up to their bullying and dark romance plot. Definitely not a book for everyone, but I liked it (quit a lot). I honestly love how we jump back to hockey or ballet every few chapters like we not only read the romance and tension between Gray and Violet, but also get to see their how focused they were on their career.

I thought Jack was the stalker, and was proven right. However did not expect there were actually 2 stalkers and the other one was Mia.

Heat: 🔥🔥🔥~🔥🔥🔥🔥 (It is kinky but not explicit)

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volanscore's review

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dark tense fast-paced

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

Picked this up to see why booktwt was talking about this and… I’m just trying to give it 0 stars… man was this book fucking awful. Side note, the “dub-con” and “cnc” tags do not apply to actual rape and masking it as if the victim “enjoyed it” is not dark romance.

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dannie_xx's review

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dark

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Audiobook🎧
DNF
Bruh??? My mistake because I didn’t know this way bully, but I always think I can handle bully romances but HELL NO! Yeah fuck this trope! I can tolerate murder but I draw the line at misogyny!😒😒 side eye!

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bookreaderblair's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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ktbug1217's review

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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aurslde's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

4.0

i'm so shocked that i enjoyed brutal obsession as much as i did. i typically don't like or even gravitate towards dark romance. but, this was an entertaining ride for me.

it took me a while for me to like the mmc. his motives for harassing the fmc were so unserious. however, i ended up feeling satisfied (as much as one can be with a dark romance love interest at least) with his character arc by the end of the book. my main issue, the one that really bothers me, was with the plot execution. i liked the initial set up that s. massery goes for. however, due to the underutilization of the length of the book, the way the plot played out felt underdeveloped and rushed. i could honestly see myself loving this book if the middle chunk was utilized more to develop the story plot wise.

plot aside, i really liked the characters and relationship dynamic... once i got used to the mmc's antics at least. a good chunk of the side characters were fun. give me willows book, this instant! i guess i'll settle for steele's book though.

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secretsofabooklover's review

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dark 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? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

fredyyee's review

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dark 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? It's complicated

4.25

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