ezra_ercolini 's review for:

Green Light by Jescie Hall

dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I found this book through a tiktok recommendation and thought I would give it a try because I usually enjoy dark romances. However, this book left me feeling disturbed and uncomfortable. I thought it definitely needed a much more prominent trigger warning at the beginning. I felt the main male character had no redeeming qualities and he did not really grow throughout the story. I would call his "bullying" of the main female character to be better described as both graphic mental and physical abuse. He sexually assaults the main female character during the book and it is never named as such - which I thought was irresponsible of the author. The long sex scenes disrupted the plot line and did not add anything to the story. I kept reading, waiting for it to get better, and it never did. While the main plot line was the "romance" between the two main characters, the secondary plotline, where the female character was investigating the murder of their roommate's sister, could have been really interesting if it was given more prominence. It could have been used to develop the two  main characters, bring them together, and create a richer story line, which wasn't there in it's current form. Overall, I would not recommend this book to anyone. It was 99% violent sex with little substance.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Stalking, Murder, Injury/Injury detail