⭐M/M, 18+, Psychological, Erotic Horror, Dark, Depraved, Stockholm, No Happy Ending.
Summary: Digging too far to find the truth can lead to darker things crawling out and consuming you. Something twisted, something broken, maybe even a mirror or something else too entirely fucked up.
(As always, I HEAVILY encourage looking at the contents and potential trigger warnings for a book before reading. Please do that to protect yourself🙏.)
Painter's Obsession contains 2 Volumes
Volume 1
Volume 2
I read this out of curiosity but also because, I wanted to hear Joe Arden voice another unhinged man. LOL as well as Corvin King as I'm picky on who I listen to so I don't do audiobooks often.
Spoiler warning a head as it is hard for me to talk about this without diving into the contents. Also, TW as there will be darker things mentioned in this review such as SA, abduction/kidnapping, killing, grooming, ext.
I give this book 6.5 bloody brush strokes.
Disclaimer: I'm not a professional, do not take my ratings to heart! I do this for fun and my ratings are on vibes, if i enjoyed it, how I enjoyed it and also how the book, specifically the characters, are written. but I was never good in English class so being super analytical about themes are not usually my thing or an area I am particularly good in. Can sometimes be but depends!
Anywho, my review~
This is a dark one. It is not a romance, there is no happy ending but it is a fitting and in my opinion, a satisfying one.
Both Ren and Byron have their own parts about them that are fucked up. Ren is a killer and meticulous about his day to day and what he does and how he plans everything. Even with the smile he shows or the concern in his voice. You see him so well put together and he works as a lawyer for low income communities and public defender work and then preys on those communities cause "no one will do anything". Which fucking hit me deeply.
His mother was fucking awful and had a hand in how he came to be, if not the main hand pulling his youthful mind and body to be what she wanted in her own grief and fucked up mind.
Byron would sell and went to prison for a bit. He beat a man for being gay/bi or whatever when he himself, was caught with said man on his dick by his at the time girlfriend and the guy on his dick, was her cousin? I believe. His own childhood shaping him as his dad beat him when he found out his son liked men and he did some other fucked up shit for Byron to think he was sick and messed up and would repress his tears and stuff as it wasn't "manly", that it made him less of a man to show it. He would also fuck another mans wife when he wasn't around and ext ext. But he loves his sister, cares for her so much as its just the 2 of them. And she is something that drives him in this story.
These characters are far from perfect but ofc, one is.... more fucked up than the other, there is no denying that. But both do have someone behind them that would mold them to be what they wanted.
I enjoyed this and I enjoyed watching Ren, unravel. During the story and with his obsession with Byron, you see him snapping out of his routine a bit. You see him pushing against the bounds of who "Ren Sato" is. You see him clap to turn the lights on and turning the shower on that heats to his exact. desired. temperature. "hot enough to cleanse, by not enough to burn" (page 177) You see him do his practiced smile and make his plans.
Then you have Byron who takes Ren's attention the moment he saw him. Byron was cautious of him, didn't want him around his sister and went snooping around and showed up, unannounced, uninvited, unplanned.
Of course Ren is quick to act despite it.
You see in the story how Ren feels and wants things from Byron that are foreign to him but also contradict a bit.
For instance, in volume 2, Ren wants to break Byron, as he always has and make him obey and follow but... he doesn't like when Byron just does what he wants. He doesn't like Byron not fighting back, losing his spark, he wants Byron to "break" to understand him but when Byron does, for a moment, just.... recede in his mind, not giving Ren anything. Ren hates it.
He loathes it.
He wants Byron's bite. He wants him to push back and he would even welcome. death at Byron's hand.
The shower comment I made? In this book you see him turning it to scalding, he doesn't have his fancy shower anymore but that doesn't mean he has to have it on the hottest setting. But he does. He did a few times in the first book when he also lost a bit of control. When thoughts of his mom would come back and he needed her off him.
You see him react one way to Byron in the first book and a different way in the second book in very similar moments. Even trying to... be soft? for Byron to come back to him mentally? Or something similar. He wasn't use to that either.
Then Byron with still showing up to the old studio and getting off and remembering what Ren did and he feels like he liked it and feels disgusting but its one of the first times, probably, where someone saw he liked men and didn't give a fuck? But he was also forced to accept himself.
Is the dynamic between them fucked? absolutely, 100%. again, this isn't romance. But Ren is also good at manipulating like twisting in truth with lies. He's more honest with Bryon but you see it in other instances.
I feel like I'm fuckin rambling but the ending, to me, was beautiful? in a way. Byron saw Ren, saw his darkness, saw a similar darkness in himself, and idk what else he saw but... despite the horrors and how fucked up things were. I enjoyed it.
There are things that could have been better and some things featured a bit more that kinda got lost to the story a bit but like I always say, perfection doesn't exist and I don't have to like something to enjoy it. and believe me, there are a lot of very fucked up things in this book.
I am not someone easy to trigger when it comes to stuff like this... *usually*. But I have friends that would and I would never recommend them this. They can eat up the content through me rambling about certain things but not directly going into the dark of it.
But yea! I know there are people who wouldn't be able to deal with this so please, stay safe. Read trigger warnings or if I've read something you're interested in, ask me. Apparently the author missed some TW'ings too.
Take care yall and thanks for reading ♥
[Upcoming Reviews: Hunt the Villain, Necessary Evils(Pending)]
(The fact I'm putting this review out first instead of Hunt the Villain 💀 I just got done reading this so it was super fresh in my mind so I had to before I lost it. Still haven't picked back up Necessary Evils yet as I don't like the 6th book and things are going down hill for me in interest but I've already written so much for the other books in my fuckin drafts so I GOTTA FINISH IT. or like- try rhdrtfyj But i've read 11.5 books since I last put down book 6 of Necessary Evils euguguh)
Another photo dump, yes, hello finally updating my reading list from these past couple of months, this is only some of them.. had a bit of an MM dark romance phase again, the titans books would recommend, same for painters obsession
But be warned:
It's 👏 going 👏 to 👏 break 👏 you
It's not a happy ending, it's dark and realistic and fuck did it make me cry.. i listened to both of them within 2 days, the duet was amazing but rips your heart out.
