REVIEW: The Obsession by Jesse Q Sutanto
A classic sort of love story…except somebody might wind up dead.
Nobody knows Delilah like Logan does. Nobody. He makes sure of it by learning everything he can through her social media and watching her through a hidden camera he has trained on her house. Some might call him a stalker. Logan prefers to be called “romantic”.
But after Logan sees Delilah killing her abusive stepfather, he realizes there’s still more about her to discover. His sweet, perfect Delilah isn’t so perfect after all.
Delilah knows she should feel guilty, but all she feels is free. She’s so over the men in her life controlling her. Except Logan saw what she did, and he won’t let her forget it.
Delilah is done being the victim. And she refuses to be a character in Logan’s twisted fantasy. If Logan won’t let her go…she’ll make him.
Dear Ms. Sutanto,
My, my, my what a twisted, lovely thriller. The fine print on the cover got me interested in this one. “Boy meets girl. Boy stalks girl. Girl gets revenge.” Oh yeah, mainly that last bit. That’s what I wanted to read about.
The blurb pretty much covers the basics but what it doesn’t give you is how this book made me feel. I laughed – quite a bit actually. It’s filled with dark humor which is thought by some dark people. It’s also got a lot of fear, anxiety, and white hot rage. A fair warning to all who choose to read it. There is a great deal of domestic violence in the first few chapters and stalking, controlling behavior through the rest. The domestic violence isn’t actually on page. What is evident is worse, in my opinion. We see how the violence has worn Dee and her mother down to terrified shadows of themselves in their own home and are left to imagine what Brandon has done to them.
Then Logan makes his move and Dee realizes that the freedom she thought she’d got from the crime she thought she’d gotten away with is just an illusion and it’s now being used against her. Since everything goes back to what she did, she can’t go to anyone with the truth. Logan is charming, one of the handsomest guys on campus, and his family is loaded, so of course no one would believe he’d have to push his way into Dee’s life and make it clear she’s never going to be free of him.
I was riveted to this book. At first it felt as if Logan truly does hold all the cards. And the sick fuck does it because he truly believes that Dee is his One and Only, his dream girl who makes the world come alive for him, and if she just accepts him, he’ll protect her and keep her safe. See, he’s doing it all for her and for the love he knows binds them together. Why won’t she stop arguing and fighting? He knows she killed Brandon and this dark side of her doesn’t scare him off so it must be true love. Right? The book also demonstrates the fact that once something is put out on the internet, it will live there forever and if you don’t put safeguards in place, anyone can see it.
As the tension and stakes increase – oh, right yes there is something else going on that Dee fears – I was madly trying to figure out what she’d do. How she was going to get herself out of this knotted tangle that would either get her sent to prison or under this delusional asshole’s thumb forever. Well, Dee is cornered, clever, and ruthless. Remember – “Girl gets revenge.” It might take her a little while to figure out what to do and how to get free but waiting for her to emerge triumphant was worth it. B
~Jayne
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Read and wasn’t too impressed. I like ruthless heroines, not too fond of sadistic ones. The delight Delilah seemed to take in inflicting pain disturbed me, especially when the author revealed her side gig, which firmly pushed her into villain territory. Nobody forced her into it and it’s disgusting.
@Jen: After everything that Brandon put Dee and her mother through, and then what Logan put Dee through, I was willing to cut her a lot of slack. The side gig wasn’t great and Sutanto could probably have worked out a better last conflict twist.