Hey Bookworm friends! Lately, I’ve taken to reading nothing but romances when I go on vacation. Now that I’m back from my trip to Colombia, I can share my review of Death’s Obsession. I finished it in one day, mostly because the mini TVs on both planes weren’t working (such is my luck)!
About Death’s Obsession
Author: Avina St. Graves
Genre: Dark Paranormal Romance
Spice Level: 3/5 🌶
Standalone
Publisher: Self-Published
Format Read: E-Book
Year Published: 2023
Cover Artist: Beholden Cover
Synopsis
He’s coming for you.
Death is meant to come on a chariot of broken dreams or in the dark trenches of a storm, not in love letters and gifts.
He did not take my soul when I was meant to die. He did not want it all the other times that I’ve offered it to him on a silver platter. Yet, time and time again, he reminds me that I am his: His night monster, his dark love, his perfect other.
Death was the only thing keeping me alive. He watches me from his corner, taunts me with sweet messages, marks my body with his touch as I sleep.
He took the people that I love away from me. Still, no one believed me when I said that I saw the faceless man on the night of the accident.
No one can escape death.
Me? I’m chasing it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking, emotional & physical abuse, death, hallucinations, traumatic events, suicide ideation, depiction of car crash
Moderate: Dubcon, impact play, breath control, emotional & physical abuse, PTSD, alcohol & drug abuse,
Minor (Mention): parent death, cancer, sibling death, anxiety, attempted suicide
Diversity
Lack of diverse representation.
Pace: Fast Paced, Character-Lead Plot
Tone: Dark, Sad
Review
A dark romance with little romance, zero plot, and the vibes are wearing a black fedora.
I’ll be the first to admit that this is not my usual fare—I don’t tend to pick up dark romances—but I love it when books depict Death as a character! I thought trying this subgenre would be safer if it included a trope I love but even that didn’t save it. Unfortunately, this review will be the opposite of glowing (bedraggled? gloomy?).
The story is about Lilith, a young woman who is going through the motions of her café job and is stuck in a loveless relationship with an abusive boyfriend. Ever since she survived the car accident that killed her twin sister, she’s been medicated and wracked with survivor’s guilt and depression. And ever since she woke up at the hospital, she’s been telling people about the ‘Faceless man’ who leaves her mysterious letters but nobody believes her. Now she silently keeps all the gifts she receives and draws what comfort she can from her stalker’s letters. Lilith’s not sure if she’s imagining him but she is sure he’s the only one who understands her.
“I am inevitable. Poets have written sonnets about me; composers have written music. Beautiful as they may be, they never amounted to anything more than a moment lost to time. Until her.“
If the set-up and list of trigger warnings aren’t enough to warn this is a trauma-filled book, let me emphasize that it remains one-note depressing all the way through! I know it’s a dark romance but the consistent oppressive atmosphere is deeply unsexy, ruining the two spicy scenes entirely. Well, maybe not entirely, the cringy dialogue did its fair share too.
Death called Lilith so many nicknames and I hated them all but none so much as ‘my night monster’ because it doesn’t make any sense! Did he just decide she’s a monster because he likes her? It’s probably to do with her name, but that’s my other main issue with this book: Death’s description of the character does not match the reader’s experience of the character.
“I want my storm to be more than just clouds. I want her to be lightning that splits trees. She will be the thunder that follows too, shaking houses and making children scream in their beds. She is named after the Mother of Demons; she will do nothing short of prosper.“
First of all, what is this Edgelord word-soup? And secondly, Lilith is supposedly named after the “Mother of Demons” and yet you are not shown any of that. She’s literally just an average sad girl, with zero agency. As a reader, I don’t see a storm let alone a dash of personality anywhere on the page. Yes okay, she’s experienced more than her fair share of trauma and she’s floating through life but the author does not help with that. Character growth? Non-existent. Any forward steps she takes are directly the cause of Death’s manipulations. The one time she was gearing up to do something semi-interesting, to grab some control of her life, he waltzed in and “solved” the problem in the most anticlimactic way possible. 🙄
Frustratingly, for a 170-page dark romance, there was almost no romance and almost no plot. Instead, there were the same repetitive scenes of her having a terrible time and dissociating. The ending was incredibly rushed and I don’t understand what in the seven hells I just read! Like, I genuinely don’t get WHY it had to happen the way it did because not much was explained. All this to say there are ways to write dark, gothic, yet still steamy romances but this is not it.
Disclosure: This is the first 1-star review on the blog, I tend to prefer posting positive reviews but for the sake of transparency I want to share more negative reviews as well. After all, if I only ever share positive reviews then the purpose of reviewing is defeated. Additionally, neither the self-published nature of the novel nor the explicit nature of the romance has any bearing on my rating.
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Let’s chat in the comments!
Have you read this one? Or, what’s your favourite subgenre of romance?
I LOVE this review! You had me cackling all the way through. I particularly love your Edgelord word-soup comment because yeah, I’m sorry but that quote alone had me cringing. I can’t imagine what the other bits of the book would do! 🫣 I’d never heard about or seen this title before but if I ever do, I’ll know to stay far away! Great review 🙂
Ahaha Thank you, Dini 🙂 I was cringing most of the way through that book. Like I wanted to love it but you know when something tries way too hard to be cool? I’m glad you found it amusing because for 1 star reviews it’s hard to find a balance between “too harsh” and showing my real feelings, lol.
It’s such a shame that this was such a letdown as the idea of a dark romance with death sounds so intriguing. I certainly can’t see myself picking it up after everything that you’ve said about it. No romance & no plot, a character that seems to do anything but live up to her name, cringe dialogue…yeah no thanks. I know how much you like the idea of death as a character so I really hope the next book you pick up involving him goes better 🤞
I was really bummed out by this one and my husband who also read it with me agrees that it was just flat-out depressing. Not what I hope for in a romance not gonna lie. haha Yeah honestly I read it so you don’t have to 😆! Yeah next book with that trope better be a good one! haha
Ok, I’ve gotta know, how did you make yourself finish this book? It sounds awful. Aside from what you listed above, which sounds a lot, why would death be fixated on a supposed mother of demons anyway? Death is neutral, not evil. Doesn’t sound like anything about this book makes sense – least of all how it was published. Hang on, just checked… it was self-published. See, this is why I avoid self-pub like the plague.
Ahaha great question. It helps a lot that for most of the time I was reading this, I was travelling with nothing better to do. My Tvs on both planes weren’t working (terrible luck lol) and my husband was reading it too so I wanted to be able to chat about it with him (he hated it too but he reads so fast it barely made a dent in his day 😂)
Yes, very good point Death is neutral and not evil but this version of Death wasn’t fleshed out at all, so I can’t even theorize ! Yeah it was self published. I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t avoid them but this was definitely a frog I had to kiss on my way to finding good self pub books 😂😂