It’s all in the title. Luke Ivy is the son of an abusive pastor, the head of a Christian cult. He meets Gabriel Lancaster a Satanist who saves him and shows him the world as they fall in love despite being from different world. This MxM story is everything but a smooth ride as it will leave you in shambles.
The plot tackles subjects like abuse, brainwashing, suicide, racism and murder but make no mistake, this is a story about survival and in many ways a love letter for those who doesn’t survive the abusive side of religion. So, it is a romantic tragedy if anything.
This one has been rewritten at least once, I remember reading the first book and now I have read the new version. The author has added more character development and introduces some characters earlier than before. He has also added a few topic’s that was glossed over last time such as racism. I personally did not think it was needed and I do not like many stories dealing with it if only because every black character’s storyline seems to be about racism. I can accept it in this book as it makes sense that it should be racism in a small prominently white town with a Christian cult.
Another thing that I think became worse with the rewrite is the trial of the father. In the older version you got a sense of the father truly being a sociopath and the trial was emotional, especially when they showed the video of Luke being beaten while his mother filmed and laughed. It hit hard. In the new version, this scene was gone and replaced by a lot of dialog which did not bring the same emotional unsettlement as the old one. It still does the job but according to me, not as well.
I adore the characters, though majority of them seem to be some kind of LGBTQ character which is not really realistic and some of them feels like they are just there to tick of a box since they aren’t fully developed such as Caleb or Faith. Not every character needs to be fully fleshed out but the one thing I know about Caleb is that he has blue hair and is transgender. That’s it. It did not bother me as I was reading the story but it might be worth mentioning for those who actually is bother by that.
Luke’s arc is handled well, and is a bit of a slowburn but I think that is far more realistic than the old version where he is completely fine after the trial. In this version, you feel every turn, every wall that exist when you are trying to get over a dark past. Not all of it is pretty and some relapses are bound to happen.
I also like the character of Gabriel though I did wish that the book delved deeper into his emotions. For example, it is mentioned that he has anger issues because of his past but most of it seem to vanish when he meets Luke. He gets angry after that but never unhealthily such as it is suggested that he was before. Overall, this is not a bother since the focus is on Luke and his recovery but the book keeps mentioning Gabriel’s anger issues and that he became better after meeting Luke but does not linger on it. I would have loved for it to actually do so since I adore Gabriel as a character.
Another thing that has changed from the old book, to the current one is less sex. I liked that, since it gave way for more character development and when the sex actually happen it felt like it had more weight which is to me a good thing since smut in a MxM romance has become overused.
Though this is a book I would put a TRIGGER WARNING on as it has a lot of violence and does not shy away from it. Along with other dark themes so if you are overly sensitive to that sort of thing I would say stay away, but I personally think it was handled tastefully. If you can ever handle abusive tastefully, this book succeeded.
I also like the message and the uniqueness of the book. I can frankly say that I have not read a book like it since and along with the book having solid writing in a modern style, it does allow for everyone to be able to read it, if you are of age.
You can read it for free here:
https://www.wattpad.com/650828347-sin-boyxboy-✔️-book-1-prologue
With Kind Regards
Senefer
Read with Senefer 