Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

Caught Up: Into Darkness, Book 2 by Navessa Allen

103 reviews

funny sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The best thing about this book was Navessa's writing style. She does a great job at infusing every character and relationship with unique qualities. I didn't particularly love the plot of this book though. It absolutely revolves around Junior and Lauren's relationship, but the sprinkling in of all the side characters and side quests made it hard for me to be invested. It was easy to see the conflict coming from a mile off and had this been by any other author, I would have DNF (I really, really hate the miscommunication trope). The celebration of and respect for sex work was a pretty cool theme throughout. 

Story moral: let people find their own happiness and consider yourself lucky if you're along for the ride. 

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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dark funny 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

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adventurous dark medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

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challenging dark emotional 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

Perhaps I judged lights out too harshly (actually no, that book needs help). Caught up was much better. I don’t care so much for erotica so I did skip around quite a bit but I really liked the story telling on this one and the very slight cliffhanger/hint to another book at the end. 
Navessa is good at creating interesting characters and propelling a story line at the length an ADHD reader would appreciate. I wish she would stop leaning so heavily on existing pop culture, internet colloquialism, and boomer humor. Some scenes that were supposed to show lightheartedness felt like they were missing a 80s laugh track, ick. There’s also a character that uses “they” pronouns which I actually liked but unfortunately they were just tossed in there to further the plot without having any real substance. And again, animal sidekicks that have the intent of showing the males gentle alpha side — lazy lazy lazy writing. 
Ton of repeat kinks, phrases, and themes. But, I do like Nick’s story better than Josh’s cause it’s not filled with self-deprecating humor. 
I also found it tough to think about how 2 books of hers in a row show mutual secret pining spanning over years, receptive attention to Italian features, and cannabalism warnings (much more detailed and disturbing this time). You okay girl? Do better 

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dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Caught Up was about as dark as I can personally go, and I had a fun time with it. 

If you’re looking for as much humor as there was in Lights Out you aren’t going to find it here, though there are still definitely moments of levity and irreverence. This book has a more serious tone, and it carried through the characters, the spice, and the “plot” (it was very loose).

Speaking of the spice… oooh boy was it hot! There was a lot of kink exploration, so if that’s not for you I’d recommend you skip this one.

I’ll probably read the next book from the library as well when it comes out. 3.5 stars

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The FMC was frustrating in jumping to conclusions and refusing to allow explanations. I was also expecting more dark comedy like the first book of the trilogy but I still enjoyed the story. Loved the MMC

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark funny medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I ended up liking Nico’s story more than I would have anticipated but ultimately wished Lauren felt more capable/self-assured than she came off. Overall strong cast of characters; Lights Out was just a 5-star book for me and Caught Up didn’t *quite* measure up. 

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