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A review by leonormsousa
OMINOUS: Book I by K.V. Rose
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
4.0
TW: (this is a very dark book and there are triggers for almost everything. I'll try to make a list but I'm sure I'll miss some, so please be aware of this before reading.) violence, death of a loved one, physical abuse, child violence, choking, drowning, stalking, sexual abuse, sexual content, cheating, alcohol and drug consumption, mental health, anxiety...
Ecstasy was my first dark romance ever and a book that I think will haunt me for the rest of my life. When K. V. Rose announced the launch of a sequel I was excited. When she announced that we would get not only the sequel but a prequel as well, I was over the moon. When she announced that the prequel would be divided into two books cause the book was too big: oh boy! I didn't know what to do with myself! It was a painful waiting but the first book of Ominous is out and, as expected, I was not disappointed. Ominous: Book 1 was............ an experience. It's a completely different book from Ecstasy, although the connection between both makes so much sense already.
Let me start by saying that K. V. Rose has a way of creating these beautiful and complicated (dark) grey characters that I can't help but fall in love with. In this book though, I'm not still sure if the realness was fully maintained. Eden was spot on in my opinion but I sometimes felt a little bit fazed by this depiction of 18-year-old Eli that seemed to be a bit too almighty. Of course, it's something that's important to create the whole vibe of the book and make you fall with this wicked boy. It's just really a very small note but something that I felt, especially now that I'm organising my thoughts on the book.
I believe writing a dark romance book is a really hard task. You're dealing most times with toxic relationships and the boundaries are usually not that clear. Most erotic books I've read tend to cross these boundaries: romanticizing toxic relationships, normalizing misogynous behaviour or even sometimes approaching sex in a very unreal or taboo way. But K. V. Rose shows an incredible sensitivity power, especially in the more recent books I've read from her. This doesn't mean she doesn't depict "incorrect" behaviours, very much on the contrary: she writes very dark romances. But she shows you the roots and causes of those behaviours and she doesn't normalize or romanticize them. Some of her stories can really give you a better insight into the darker side of our minds.
Finally, I really want to mention how important it is to have an author talk about such hard topics in such a realistic way. Mental health, substance abuse, violence and sex are being more and more written about but it's many times from a closed and even denigrating view and K. V. Rose completely escapes from this by writing of what I feel is a much more pragmatic, non-discriminatory and all-inclusive one.
So, after all this, why did I end up with 4 stars? I'm not sure tbh, it was more of a feeling. There was something missing but I don't know quite yet what. On the other hand, I was a bit disturbed with those final chapters and I think I still need to reread them someday to process everything. Besides that, I feel like I missed closure in this book (which is quite normal considering this was only volume one but still...). I truly believe I will enjoy the second volume even more and it will probably leave me with an even bigger reading slump than this one (Thank you K. V. for breaking me over and over again
Ecstasy was my first dark romance ever and a book that I think will haunt me for the rest of my life. When K. V. Rose announced the launch of a sequel I was excited. When she announced that we would get not only the sequel but a prequel as well, I was over the moon. When she announced that the prequel would be divided into two books cause the book was too big: oh boy! I didn't know what to do with myself! It was a painful waiting but the first book of Ominous is out and, as expected, I was not disappointed. Ominous: Book 1 was............ an experience. It's a completely different book from Ecstasy, although the connection between both makes so much sense already.
Let me start by saying that K. V. Rose has a way of creating these beautiful and complicated (dark) grey characters that I can't help but fall in love with. In this book though, I'm not still sure if the realness was fully maintained. Eden was spot on in my opinion but I sometimes felt a little bit fazed by this depiction of 18-year-old Eli that seemed to be a bit too almighty. Of course, it's something that's important to create the whole vibe of the book and make you fall with this wicked boy. It's just really a very small note but something that I felt, especially now that I'm organising my thoughts on the book.
I believe writing a dark romance book is a really hard task. You're dealing most times with toxic relationships and the boundaries are usually not that clear. Most erotic books I've read tend to cross these boundaries: romanticizing toxic relationships, normalizing misogynous behaviour or even sometimes approaching sex in a very unreal or taboo way. But K. V. Rose shows an incredible sensitivity power, especially in the more recent books I've read from her. This doesn't mean she doesn't depict "incorrect" behaviours, very much on the contrary: she writes very dark romances. But she shows you the roots and causes of those behaviours and she doesn't normalize or romanticize them. Some of her stories can really give you a better insight into the darker side of our minds.
Finally, I really want to mention how important it is to have an author talk about such hard topics in such a realistic way. Mental health, substance abuse, violence and sex are being more and more written about but it's many times from a closed and even denigrating view and K. V. Rose completely escapes from this by writing of what I feel is a much more pragmatic, non-discriminatory and all-inclusive one.
So, after all this, why did I end up with 4 stars? I'm not sure tbh, it was more of a feeling. There was something missing but I don't know quite yet what. On the other hand, I was a bit disturbed with those final chapters and I think I still need to reread them someday to process everything. Besides that, I feel like I missed closure in this book (which is quite normal considering this was only volume one but still...). I truly believe I will enjoy the second volume even more and it will probably leave me with an even bigger reading slump than this one (Thank you K. V. for breaking me over and over again