'The Obsession' Book Review! ~ 💢

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Hello and welcome to another book review!

I should seriously think of a specific greeting to use, it's getting difficult trying to think of new ways to greet everyone without making it cringey.

Anyway, this time we're looking at a genre that...I don't really have a name for? It could be called mystery...except you already know everything.

 It could be called murder mystery...except you know who killed who. 

It's more like...unsettling. 

Yeah, that's it, unsettling. 

And slightly creepy.

(Cut me some slack here, I'm desperately trying not to spoil anything.)

The Obsession by Jesse Q. Sutanto is the book I couldn't stop talking about for days <3

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First of all, I just want to start this off by apologizing to my poor friends who had to deal with my endless ranting and frustration while I was reading this book, I'm sorry you had to listen to me go on for hours about how agonizing the book was. 

In the best way possible of course!

This is one of those books you absolutely cannot put down once you start reading, it's filled with plot twists and surprises, and its the type of book that'll have you sitting there trying to sort through your emotions. 

Also, this book just so happens to be an "If I can't have you, no one can" trope, which I couldn't possibly not read.

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TW before you decide to read it: Suicide, murder, mental health disorders, drugs, obsessive stalking, abuse, and blackmail.

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- Description -

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Woah a lot to unpack there. 

I'm sure you can now see where the 'stalking' portion of this book comes into play, Logan being the stalker. I think when people first hear the term 'stalker', they have their own ideologies of creepy men stalking women to hurt them, but honestly, this book completely changed my perspective on this topic. 

I guess I could say the book kind of...'justified' the stalking? It was completely wrong of Logan, and very creepy, but I guess...I kind of understood why he did it, and what compelled him to.

You see, the reason why Logan started stalking Delilah, and why he thinks they're soulmates, is because she looks eerily like the girl he used to love, who passed away a while ago from suicide. 

Mhm, take a moment to comprehend that. 

I feel like because Logan was still grieving over her- and we all know that people experience grief differently- he saw Delilah as a way to overcome that grief. Delilah was his second chance at love.

(Off topic, but Jesse Q. Sutanto is really pretty!)

This book gave me many complicated emotions, including empathy for Logan, even though feeling empathy for a stalker felt a bit wrong. It also made me realize that, though he is portrayed a stalker, he has feelings and emotions he sometimes can't control, and he's human too. But then again, he also set up secret cameras near Delilah's house and ended up blackmailing her so I'm not sure how far that empathy goes.

I think from early on into the book, you can tell that there's something up with Logan, something you wouldn't find in a 'normal' teenage boy. 

He mentions having anger issues, but you can tell its more than that. Later on in the book, Delilah dives more into this topic and finds the name of a mental health disorder that she believes Logan has. I'm not so sure I agree with googling mental health disorders and self-diagnosing (even Delilah didn't seem to) but I guess it was one way to hint readers in about Logan's mental health state. 

One thing this book did really well is the character development! I know some of the other books I reviewed before were great at this too, but character development played an especially crucial role in this story. The first impressions you get of Logan and Delilah are absolutely NOT the same as what you know about them when you're finished the book. Both Logan and Delilah's characters were a lot more complicated than they seemed, and the line between the antagonist and the protagonist sometimes became blurred. By the time you finished the book, there wasn't a line at all.

Since we're on the topic of character development, I think Delilah's character specifically deserves a mention. Her character seems simple at first, understandable. A shy new girl on her first day at a new boarding school, nervous. 

But then it morphs into something more dangerous than that, harder to understand. She becomes far from innocent, or shy. I personally think Delilah's character may have been more confusing than Logan's. For Logan's character, we got some sort of a reason or some sort of an explanation into why he was the way he was, but for Delilah, its hard to connect her past trauma to why she did what she did.

This entire book was just...twisted. A twisted romance. 

Since we're nearing the end of this book review, let's talk about the ending. 

It mayyy have been worse than a cliffhanger. 

It wasn't exactly a cliffhanger per se, since it kinda hints into how the rest of the story is going to turn out, but let's just say it was very short, concise, and agonizing. There was a major event that turned the tables between Delilah and Logan, and when you flip the page to find out the consequences...you see the acknowledgements. 

WHY JESSE SUTANTO, WHY??

I think the ending is actually what compelled me to even write this book review, it was artfully put together to give the reader the maximum amount of frustration and longing for more. It was pretty perfect for authors who love being evil to their readers! 

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Overall, this twisted romance was quite the rollercoaster to read through, probably a bigger rollercoaster than The Cruel Prince. It was an amazing, creepy read with the right amount of tropes, and definitely unique, something I haven't read before. 

The sequel! 

I want to read more of Jesse Sutanto's work, and I'm just in luck because there's a sequel! The sequel isn't a continuation of the story unfortunately, but it's set in the same school...and may or may not have murder involved. Let me know if I should review it too! Going off of the cover, it looks just as creepy and interesting to read as The Obsession, I'm definitely going to be adding it to my TBR list <3

I hope you enjoyed this book review! Make sure you check out Jesse Q. Sutanto's work, and follow me on Instagram (@saphsbookblog) <3

Peace ✌

Sincerely, 

Sapphire