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A review by readwithmesashamarie
Forbidden: Part One by Emilia Emerson
4.0
After reading, more like devouring, Eliana Lee’s omegaverse duology and standalone I started following her on social media. I saw that she was working on an upcoming project with another author and wanted to check out their work so I could support them both in the upcoming months. Similar to Lee’s omegaverse, Emilia Emerson/Rossi has a duology and a standalone set in the same world with overlapping characters. For the purpose of this review I’ll be discussing both books in the duology: Forbidden Part One and Forbidden Part Two.
In Forbidden Part One we are introduced to our characters and a very tumultuous political system where alphas have stripped omegas of almost all their rights. There are many aspects of the politics and governing body that were very triggering to read due to our real world political climate, but thankfully all of our main characters are part of the rebellious alliance that is trying to dismantle this system and bring justice to omega’s.
Our FMC omega has experienced a lot of trauma, and so have her future alphas. It was hard to watch as she relived some of these experiences in dreams or flashbacks while her new alphas sat by helplessly until she was able to trust them. They gained her trust slowly and through repetitive positive actions that reinforced their genuine intentions. Each alpha was able to break down his own walls and explore their own trauma through the comforting connection they shared with their omega.
Our omega deals with body image issues, food issues, and initially has an aversion to sex or pleasuring themselves. While not all of these issues are resolved (because that would be unrealistic to how working through trauma looks in real life) we do see our omega progress throughout the story. This book does end on a cliffhanger that threads into part two, but don’t worry. Part two does deliver a happily ever after. Eventually.
Unfortunately in order to arrive at that happy place in Forbidden Part Two, we the reader and our newly beloved characters have to go through absolute hell on earth first. I cried my way through most of the chapters in this book. The trauma and emotional turmoil was a physical presence in the room with me, hovering possessively (and not in the hot way) while I made my way through this story. I had to push through and remind myself I was promised a HEA, but holy moly was it a rough book to read.
I should also note that these books were long in addition to being slightly triggering. I did find myself skimming a lot of this book and just reading dialogue sections at times so that I could avoid some of the inner monologues of the pain and confusion while our characters were suffering.
Thankfully this book wraps up by piecing our characters back together, and I attempted to piece myself together right along with them. I’m not sure how well I accomplished that task on my own, but I am excited to start the third book in this series, which is a standalone that features an omega we met in this duology.
This story was a wild emotional ride, and while I do really love seeing characters cared for after a traumatic event, this novel definitely pushed closer and closer to my personal reading boundaries. I’m tempted to classify this story as a dark omegaverse romance due to some of the themes that were present, and extremely challenging to get through. On the positive side there was great representation for Dom/sub and BDSM dynamics, excellent cooking and baking scenes, and a fearsome alpha who has a wicked collection of romance novels.
I wouldn’t recommend this particular omegaverse duology to anyone who is new to this genre, but if you want something that will pull at your heart strings, make you equal parts horrified, pissed off, and cheering for the ending then definitely consider picking these books up.
In Forbidden Part One we are introduced to our characters and a very tumultuous political system where alphas have stripped omegas of almost all their rights. There are many aspects of the politics and governing body that were very triggering to read due to our real world political climate, but thankfully all of our main characters are part of the rebellious alliance that is trying to dismantle this system and bring justice to omega’s.
Our FMC omega has experienced a lot of trauma, and so have her future alphas. It was hard to watch as she relived some of these experiences in dreams or flashbacks while her new alphas sat by helplessly until she was able to trust them. They gained her trust slowly and through repetitive positive actions that reinforced their genuine intentions. Each alpha was able to break down his own walls and explore their own trauma through the comforting connection they shared with their omega.
Our omega deals with body image issues, food issues, and initially has an aversion to sex or pleasuring themselves. While not all of these issues are resolved (because that would be unrealistic to how working through trauma looks in real life) we do see our omega progress throughout the story. This book does end on a cliffhanger that threads into part two, but don’t worry. Part two does deliver a happily ever after. Eventually.
Unfortunately in order to arrive at that happy place in Forbidden Part Two, we the reader and our newly beloved characters have to go through absolute hell on earth first. I cried my way through most of the chapters in this book. The trauma and emotional turmoil was a physical presence in the room with me, hovering possessively (and not in the hot way) while I made my way through this story. I had to push through and remind myself I was promised a HEA, but holy moly was it a rough book to read.
I should also note that these books were long in addition to being slightly triggering. I did find myself skimming a lot of this book and just reading dialogue sections at times so that I could avoid some of the inner monologues of the pain and confusion while our characters were suffering.
Thankfully this book wraps up by piecing our characters back together, and I attempted to piece myself together right along with them. I’m not sure how well I accomplished that task on my own, but I am excited to start the third book in this series, which is a standalone that features an omega we met in this duology.
This story was a wild emotional ride, and while I do really love seeing characters cared for after a traumatic event, this novel definitely pushed closer and closer to my personal reading boundaries. I’m tempted to classify this story as a dark omegaverse romance due to some of the themes that were present, and extremely challenging to get through. On the positive side there was great representation for Dom/sub and BDSM dynamics, excellent cooking and baking scenes, and a fearsome alpha who has a wicked collection of romance novels.
I wouldn’t recommend this particular omegaverse duology to anyone who is new to this genre, but if you want something that will pull at your heart strings, make you equal parts horrified, pissed off, and cheering for the ending then definitely consider picking these books up.