This article contains mild spoilers for “The Sweetest Oblivion.” Read at your own risk!
“The Sweetest Oblivion” by Danielle Lori has absolutely blown up with people raving about this book. For those of you that haven’t heard of it, “The Sweet Oblivion” follows Elena Abelli, the daughter of a Don in the mafia, as she starts to develop feelings for Nico Russo, her sister’s fiancé, who is obviously off-limits. He’s also one of the most intimidating and powerful men in all of New York City. Elena knows she can’t fall in love with Nico, but sometimes the heart wants what it wants.
Because of all the hype and the fun premise, I was excited to pick this book up and give it a try.
Let me start by saying that I gave this book one and a half stars, so it’s clear to say that I was not a fan, despite how much I wanted to enjoy it. My expectations were relatively low since I usually don’t love books with a ton of hype, but I still wound up disappointed.
Firstly, this book was under 400 pages, but I’d totally believe you if you told me it was over 800. I’d like it noted that I read “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara faster than I read “The Sweetest Oblivion,” which is really saying something about how little I wanted to pick up this book.
There’s nothing special about Elena. She’s one of the most uninteresting protagonists I’ve ever read about because she has no interests. Seriously, she likes to do one thing, and she stops doing it at the beginning of the book, so I don’t know how she fills her time besides thinking obnoxious thoughts. While I did think Nico could be fun at times, he was really grating as the book went on. He was evil for the sake of being evil, and he really wasn’t that captivating. The side characters blurred together, except for Nonna. She was kinda fun because she put Elena in her place.
Since this is a romance novel, I expected to find the romance somewhat intriguing. Surprise, surprise, it was not. The chemistry between Nico and Elena just didn’t exist because the only thing they seemed to like about each other was how attractive they were. How am I supposed to believe their love’s built to last when its foundation is built solely on lust?
Wanna hear the thing that drove me absolutely bonkers? The repetition. There were certain words and phrases that Lori used over and over and over again that didn’t make sense to be used that many times because they were things people don’t use that often. Sometimes those words and phrases would repeat on the same page, making it that much harder to get through.
This is the first spicy book I’ve ever finished, and I think it was a fine starting place because the spicy scenes weren’t too insane. However, almost all of them felt like the exact same scene because they would just do the same thing, which got really old. A little variety would’ve been nice.
So, would I recommend you give “The Sweetest Oblivion” a read? Honestly, no. I mean, I get why some people enjoy this book, but it seriously wasn’t for me.