Format: ebook
Published: November 24th, 2023
Age: Adult
Genre: Horror – Paranormal Romance
Rating: 5/5 Stars
As part of Blogtober, I’m reposting some of my Divination Hollow reviews from the last year. Usually, I review horror and similar genres over there, but October seems like a great time to highlight some of my favourites! You can read the original review here.
Jacked Up is a sentient object dark romance that focuses around a possessed Jack-in-the-box and the very unlucky FMC who inherits it. Melody has a shit job, lives in a shit apartment, tries to stay away from her shit stepfather, and her grandmother has just died, leaving Melody with the creepy Jack-in-the-box she never seemed to let out of her sight. Melody starts having strange dreams about visiting ‘Claus’, who has a spring where his legs should be, and feels almost disturbingly attracted to the sad clown man.
Claus tells Melody he can be released from the box, in his full form, if she sacrifices someone. So begins a bit of a bloodbath at Melody’s hands, and a wild ride that sees ‘Claus’ emerge from the box with…well, some interesting additions to his anatomy.
Honestly, I can’t get over how much fun this book was. And sexy. Claus is, of course, not all he appears to be, but with the narration split with Melody during the first part and ‘Claus’ taking over a little later, we get to understand things much faster than the FMC who, really, just wants to be loved.
There’s quite a few content warnings for the book, and the author includes them at the start, with some extra information on exactly what type of book you’re going to be reading. As a whole, the book is fun, but Nova still manages to work in some dark themes regarding capitalism, slum landlords, sexual assault and harassment, toxic families and more. Even before ‘Claus’, Melody’s life is kind of bleak, and Melody is simply trying to survive until the next day. She can’t be blamed for falling for the sexy guy crawling out of the box, and doing all she can to restore him to his true self.
Honestly, I can’t convey any more how much I adored this book. It’s fun, entertaining, while also managing to convey an idea of just how messed up our capitalist focused lives have become.
Unwrapping Words 