Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - Caught Up: Into Darkness, Book 2

Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Caught Up: Into Darkness, Book 2 by Navessa Allen

63 reviews

ilmiruth's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense

Content Warnings

anxiousadventurer_'s review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional funny mysterious fast-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

Content Warnings

lost_between_the_pages's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

Round up to 4.5 - and that's simply because it wasn't Aly & Josh's story... I just have a soft spot for them both and Navessa spoiled me with their love story. That said, I really enjoyed Lauren and Nics story, too! I'm really not sure why people are rating it so low and saying they hated it? Maybe because of Laurens profession and it makes them feel uncomfortable? I'm not sure... but people expecting another Aly & Josh have their expectations set too high... there can only be ONE Aly & Josh. I really loved their cameos in this story as well. Josh being an actual teddy bear and Aly being her strong, sassy self - I loved it so much that I'm going to go back and reread Lights Out (and I hardly EVER do re-reads). I also really loved the the whole players club aspect and while I'll be outing myself, I'm not ashamed of my sexuality and never will be so reading about others who also enjoy voyeurism and slight BDSM was super hot! The friendship between Lauren, Ryan and Taylor were super sweet and I wish I had a friend group like that - supportive through everything and absolutely hilarious .. ready to ride at dawn! At first I thought the next book would 100% be about Taylor because she is one of my favorite side characters in a dark romance so far but because of the epilogue, I'm pretty positive the next book is going to be about Tyler and Stella which I'm ok with.. should be good! I really love that Navessa doesn't hold back in her stories and she makes the characters seem REAL -- probably why Lauren drove me absolutely nuts at certain parts of the book and why I took .5 stars away because my gosh girl... communication is important, just assuming... well you know what that means. IDK... although yes, I did enjoy Aly and Josh's story so very much and I'm pretty sure they will ALWAYS be my favorite couple in this series... I really did love Lauren and Nics story too. It helped us understand the mob perspective we got in Lights Out and how Aly was involved in her family. It's become one of my favorite series and I can't wait to see what the next book holds and where the couples will be when we get to it. I am hoping that Navessa will make sure to hold space for a book that shows us where all the couples are later in their relationship as I think it would be fun to see where they are in a couple years, especially after the fun details we got in Caught Up. All in all -- this story was sexy, hilarious, impowering, motivating, and it felt like something that two real people could and would go through. I'm thankful I didn't listen to others and read it myself because I would have missed out had I not. In my opinion, it's a fun read with a really cute obsessed couple who's went through all the hard things and have a hard time trusting but find their way back to one another. I'm a sucker for second chances, what can I say?

Content Warnings

lewismo28's review against another edition

3.0

dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Had a hard time separating the author from the book in this one. Definitely felt her views and opinions strongly showing. The spice was good but the author threw every hot topic they could think of in here. Wasn’t a fan of the FMC. Loved Junior though!

Content Warnings

oddlystormy's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing tense fast-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

Content Warnings

aw21594377's review against another edition

3.25

dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This was pretty different from Lights Out and I was dubious for the first 50%. By the end, I was on board with Junior and Lauren's relationship. The audiobook was excellently produced. I was expecting this to be funnier than it was -- I didn't laugh out loud at all, whereas Lights Out made me lol multiple times. Because of that, I didn't like this quite as much.

I liked diving more into mafia culture. Nico Sr. was a piece of work. Honestly, I kind of forgot about his relationship with Aly and Josh from LO. Seeing how being born into the mob ends up being their lifestyle was kind of scary. It's almost like a gang where it's really hard to leave because they control every aspect of your life. Allen had a very decidedly negative view of the mafia, which is warranted. The fact that Nico Sr. was totally willing to throw Junior under the bus with the olive oil investment shows just how brutal he is. (I just read a book where the patriarchal figures are just as ruthless -- Kiss of the Basilisk by Lindsay Straube.)

I like how sex positive Navessa Allen is. I've learned more about the industry from influencers I've seen on social media, but getting a female perspective was fun after Josh's perspective from LO. Hearing Junior break down Lauren's income was fascinating. I do wish Allen had talked about how hard it is to succeed at cam work. The amount of work and dedication it takes to become successful is grueling. Yes, she mentions it took Lauren a couple years to get to where she was, but the day in, day out work/work ethic was missing. Clearly Allen is drawn to voyeurism as a concept (Josh spied on Aly, Lauren and Junior visit Velvet). I actually also really liked the sex scenes that take place at the club. We also get a glimpse at the discrimination against the industry. There are certain regulations that entrap the owners, which are easily exploited.

The allusion to Josh's online presence when Lauren recognizes Aly's UN was sneaky! I'm kind of surprised Lauren didn't tell Junior. Also don't 100% understand why she doesn't tell him. Generally, there seemed to be secrets that were kept between the characters that had 0 impact on the outcome of the plot. Like how Josh's roommate (or former roommate) and Junior are in business together. And lastly, why Josh has such a strong aversion to meat. Like it's not a huge secret, but Junior doesn't know why and someone just tells him they'll tell him later when it would've taken 1 sentence to explain it. I feel like there's another big secret but I can't remember it at this time... (Ok, I guess the secret that Lauren's father is in Italy was kind of impactful for Lauren's personal growth.)

I also like how Junior learns about himself and his sexual preferences. His experience of being introduced to the kink world was relatable. The lack of language/vocabulary/exposure to new sexual experiences is pretty typical. The mafia is also pretty homophobic and monogamous on the whole. There seemed to be less spice than in LO, which is fine! The spice that is included didn't feel like a c/p from LO, which was good.

I don't entirely understand Junior's parents' relationship. It's hard for me to believe that Nico's abusive behavior doesn't bleed into his relationship with Moira. Of course, she's in a particular position to protect her children from their father's wrath, which we see at the end when Junior breaks free from Nico's influence. Honestly, though, when Nick Jr. tells Josh the plan of how he would break the news to Nico, I expected something more than just confronting him with the whole family present. Like, I get why he does it that way, but it was a little anticlimactic after how cryptically it's handled.

NGL, this was a fun time, but there didn't seem to be a ton of character growth for either lead. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it was somewhat hard to relate to them because not many people are part of the mob, and not many people do cam work. A way to relate to fictional characters is through their trauma. We get brief mentions of how Lauren had to work through her shame and reclaim her sexual independence, but that's mostly handled before the book starts. Sort of the same with Junior -- we see him with one foot out the door. Their big conflict at the end was kind of underwhelming. I like that there really isn't a third act breakup, but again, couldn't relate to Lauren's emotional response. I don't want to diminish her emotions, but it just felt underwhelming. On top of that, we hardly see or hear about Lauren's relationship with her sister. I don't really understand why she was included since she was nothing more than a plot device. That could've been an interesting opportunity to add more dimension to Lauren's character.

I guess, this is all to say that Lights Out was really good! And this characters' stories fall flat in multiple ways for me. Additionally, some key aspects of writing mechanics fell short. I just wasn't as pulled into this story as Aly's and Josh's. Allen set herself up for a tough task of creating a story just as captivating. And unfortunately, in my opinion she just didn't deliver as strong of a story for Lauren and Junior.

The stakes felt lower -- all the conflict was resolved really easily and in relatively "normal" ways. At the end of LO, Aly and Josh kill a guy. The big conflict at the end of Caught Up is Junior facing off with his father, which in contrast was kinda boring 😬

Content Warnings