Book: Chokehold by Leigh Rivers, Harleigh Beck
Reviewed by Anonymous
Rating: 5/5
I went into this thinking I was probably going to have a hard time with it. I had never read anything quite this dark, and the stepbrother trope was definitely outside my usual comfort zone.
And then I loved it.
This was so dark. Like, too dark. But somehow that was exactly how these two worked. Their connection was the darkness. It wasn't something broken that needed to be fixed or resolved by the end. It was part of who they were together, and I think that's what made it work so well for me.
I was also genuinely surprised by how much depth the characters had. They both felt fully formed and completely individual, and as their connection grew, so did the layers to their characters and their angst. The book could absolutely get tropey at times, but honestly, that's a trope for a reason.
There were a couple of things later in the book that had me going a little eeeeh, but nothing that changed how much I loved this.
I finished this wanting to find a dozen more books exactly like it. I'm still looking.