Anna's Reviews > A Song of Sin and Salvation

“A Song of Sin and Salvation” by L.H. Blake

5⭐️/5⭐️
2.5🌶/5🌶

“I look over, and she’s smiling. Genuinely smiling, and it’s because of me. And as the sun peeks through the clouds to shine on her face, I realize she’s completely stolen my heart. A heart I wasn’t even sure I had to lose.”

Rebecca Briar is the quintessential good girl. She goes to church, volunteers at every opportunity, eats whatever food is put in front of her, dates the boy her parents selected, and has a 4.0 GPA. But she’s miserable, and questioning why she feels this way when she’s doing exactly what’s expected of her. Shouldn’t she feel fulfilled if she’s living a life God intended? Her spiraling accelerates when James Walton moves next door. James is everything her parents tell her to avoid: he has long hair, listens to heavy metal music, smokes, and wears clothing with devils and pentagrams. Everyone in her life is telling Rebecca to stay away, but she quickly finds James irresistible. Is it possible for Rebecca to stay a ‘good girl’ while being in love with a bad boy?

-This book was CUTE. And angsty as hell. I didn’t expect it to be quite so angsty, so I advise readers to check the content warnings on the author’s website. Some of the topics discussed in the book are pretty intense, and in some ways it was like I was reading a horror book; I couldn’t believe the abuse Rebeca suffered. My heart broke for her whenever I read her POV chapters. She’s such a compelling character, and I would absolutely read a book that focuses just on her as a person and her personal growth.

-Let me address the elephant in the room: yeah, this is totally inspired by Eddie and Chrissy from “Stranger Things”. I’m not mad about it! I haven’t watched that season of the show, so all I know about them is from online discussions and fan art, but they looked very cute as a fanon couple. I’m in my fanfic era, and I’m all about authors being inspired by various forms of media and turning it into an original story. I really appreciate the depth of Rebecca’s character. She’s completely fleshed out, and you can tell the author put a lot of consideration into the character when writing.

-I saw some people refer to this as ‘young adult’, but I disagree. I personally never got YA vibes from the book. Yes, the characters are in high school, the FMC is eighteen and the MMC is nineteen. But when you compare the way this book was written, and how YA is predominantly written, there’s a clear difference in tone. The antagonists are not cheesy or over the top, they feel painfully realistic. This book is also quite sexually explicit. I put it at two and a half chili peppers more so because of the quantity of smut, but rest assured there IS smut in this book.

-I love James, he’s a wonderful character and book boyfriend goals! I love the boy next door trope, I haven’t read very many romances containing this dynamic. The close proximity, coupled with their obvious differences, created some wonderful tension immediately between James and Rebecca. This is a true slow burn romance, but the tension grabbed my interest and made it easy to keep reading.

-There are some plot twists that are easily identifiable for readers, but some that will catch you off guard. I thought I had some mysteries figured out, but was totally wrong by the end of the book. There are several different plot points running through this book, but the author did an excellent job weaving them all through the story without getting any of them tangled.

-I would recommend this book if you are interested in reading a Hellcheer inspired romance book, want to read about true opposites attract, love a boy next door romance, or want to read about a FMC rejecting purity culture and accepting her sexuality.