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A review by lilipopmlml
Forgive Me Father by Katerina St Clair
1.5
I got this book out of a morbid sense of curiosity - I do read a good amount of "dark romance," am not adverse to "spicy" books, and thought the concept of a priest breaking his vows was a set-up for some great angst.
Boy was I wrong. I read all the disclaimers and trigger warnings and was prepared, but as much as I like spicy, dark romance books, I prefer them to be between two consenting (and consensually kinky) adults. This was not that. Edith falls into the category of barely legal, while Roman is almost thirty, and while that age difference might not seem like much in terms of numbers, it felt like a grooming story, especially with Eden being set up as a shy, highly traumatized, and thus highly susceptible to abuse, girl from the beginning of the story. I could have gotten over that, maybe, if Eden and Roman's story was a little slower-paced, but they are fully finger banging in his car only a few hours after meeting.
Overall, I thought this book was very inconsistent in its characterization of pretty much every single character. Eden's actions and thought processes were all over the place, and seemed highly unrealistic given what she had already been through. Roman was even worse, as a male protagonist he wasn't flip flopping between black and white with zero shades of grey. Somehow the most realistic part of this book was that there was an underground sex trafficking ring being run out of a Catholic church.
I thought the premise had some promise, and was actually hoping Eden would be one of those FMC's who learns to own her sexuality and becomes somewhat of a femme fatale. Sadly, the execution was highly lacking for me and there were several times where I almost DNFed. If you are able to overlook the glaring lack of consistent characterization and are just in it for the spicy scenes, you might enjoy, but otherwise read with caution.
Boy was I wrong. I read all the disclaimers and trigger warnings and was prepared, but as much as I like spicy, dark romance books, I prefer them to be between two consenting (and consensually kinky) adults. This was not that. Edith falls into the category of barely legal, while Roman is almost thirty, and while that age difference might not seem like much in terms of numbers, it felt like a grooming story, especially with Eden being set up as a shy, highly traumatized, and thus highly susceptible to abuse, girl from the beginning of the story. I could have gotten over that, maybe, if Eden and Roman's story was a little slower-paced, but they are fully finger banging in his car only a few hours after meeting.
Overall, I thought this book was very inconsistent in its characterization of pretty much every single character. Eden's actions and thought processes were all over the place, and seemed highly unrealistic given what she had already been through. Roman was even worse, as a male protagonist he wasn't flip flopping between black and white with zero shades of grey. Somehow the most realistic part of this book was that there was an underground sex trafficking ring being run out of a Catholic church.
I thought the premise had some promise, and was actually hoping Eden would be one of those FMC's who learns to own her sexuality and becomes somewhat of a femme fatale. Sadly, the execution was highly lacking for me and there were several times where I almost DNFed. If you are able to overlook the glaring lack of consistent characterization and are just in it for the spicy scenes, you might enjoy, but otherwise read with caution.