The Maddest Obsession by Danielle Lori
A book review
Hello again, my darling writers and readers, and happy Friday! I hope you all had a spectacular week. I’m back today with yet another book review, this one of a dark, enemies-to-lovers mafia romance that I really enjoyed— The Maddest Obsession by Danielle Lori! As always, my book reviews contain spoilers, so before I get into things be warned if you haven’t given it a read!
To begin, I never thought I would get to reading this book. I absolutely hated the first one in the series (both Nico and Elena’s characters were nauseating and impossible to like— Nico an unlikable POS, Elena hilariously irritating— and their relationship was boring and borderline intolerable), and many posts on Twitter and TikTok described how overwhelming the last book in the series was, so I didn’t care to try that one at all. However, not too long ago I found this account on Twitter that posted so many Christian x Gianna-related things, and everyone in the comments raved about them, so I finally gave it a try— and I’m so happy I did.
Right off the bat, I fell in love with both Gianna and Christian’s characters. Gianna is someone who seems to have the biggest heart in the universe and so much love to give, but she doesn’t have anyone who seems to care for her. Her life is difficult, and she is haunted by her past traumas, but she covers it all up with sarcasm, alcohol and drugs, sparkly outfits, and a lot of sass. She is selfless (she gives a prostitute luxury shoes and walks barefoot in the snow; she doesn’t think twice about giving money to a homeless man) and messy, which is something I can relate to.
Christian, on the other hand, I am obsessed with the way he is with Gianna. I have read dozens of dark romance books with morally-grey, “asshole” men, and he is quite literally the first one I actually like. He is an asshole to everyone but Gianna (he has his moments of snide remarks and psychotic decisions to/with her, but it’s okay!), who he is so crazy obsessed with that he waits eight years to have her. He kills men just for getting near her and threatens others for getting too close. I especially liked that he was not a one-dimensional mess. He has deep, tragic reasons for his flaws and behaviours, and a backstory that made my heart throb (and likewise for Gianna; another one of the reasons I almost didn’t pick up this book was because she was a ‘hot mess’ kind of character in the first book). Not to mention, some of the things he says did things to me (“Don’t shut yourself in a room with me again, Gianna,” wow).
As far as mafia romances go, this plot wasn’t particularly unique, but the time skips and the quick chapters made it easy to read and hard to put down. While this book did follow the same script as most mafia romances (murders that happen for basically no reason, arranged marriages, etc.), I didn’t find myself bored with it. I was worried the time skips would ruin the book for me, but Danielle Lori kept all the ‘serious’ time skips in the first half of the book, and those chapters that included them were well-written anyway.
There were, of course, things I disliked about the book. One common theme I find in particular about dark romances is some of the cringiest sentences, one-liners, and dialogue I could ever read. “You couldn’t survive me Gianna. Nothing fragile ever does” and “You’re not afraid of me. And baby, I’m worse than the dark” were two of the several lines in the novel that made me physically cringe. Unfortunately, since I’ve given many enemies to lovers, dark romances a try, I’m afraid at this point it might just be inevitable for every book in these genres to have a corny line or two. Luckily for TMO, there weren’t too many (I gave Twisted Games a read earlier this year, and the book was filled with them; just about every line in Haunting Adeline was horrid as well). Another thing I disliked about the book was quite a bit of the plot. Believe me, I, of course, adored everything about Christian and Gianna’s relationship. I love everything about their individual characters, and it makes my heart flutter knowing Christian waited eight years to have her. But besides that, there was nothing about the other parts of the plot that interested me. To me, there weren’t really any stakes (I always thought Christian wouldn’t be permitted to marry Gianna, but when he finally is honest about his feelings for her to Nico, Nico basically says ‘just marry her’— oh, alright!), and the obstacles that were put in their path were so forced (I mean, one night Gianna is a literal emotional wreck, and when Nico sees her, he just randomly marries her off? Okay!). I am not a fan of surprise pregnancy tropes, and reading it at the end of the book made me sigh.
All in all, I rate this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. I love everything about Christian and Gianna. He is utterly infatuated with her, doesn’t even think twice about killing for her, and literally says he couldn’t live without her. Honestly, I could read many books of just the two of them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I gave this a reread in the future.
Thank you guys again for all of your love and support. I appreciate it endlessly. As I finish the first draft of my work-in-progress novel, you might just see posts about it soon, so keep an eye out!
With love,
c <3