Santa's Broken Toy - Review

𝕀𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕖 𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕜 ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨

𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢’𝘴 𝘉𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘛𝘰𝘺 by @oonagraceauthor

⭐⭐⭐⭐

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

“...don’t say you can’t imagine it. It’s not an orc or a faerie, it's real life. It’s happening to me, right in front of you, and it could happen to you, too. That’s the reality people don’t want to imagine.”

I love this quote so much. The author did an incredible job of making me feel empathy for Mary. Feeling her shattered heart and feeling the frustration that she has no one to hold her and help her through the worst years of her life. People are always awkward when someone they know loses a loved one. It didn’t happen to them so they silo that person, mark them with pity instead of sympathy and words spew out of their mouths. Unwanted and sometimes hurtful words. I’ve been there, so I absolutely understand where Mary is coming from. And this quote resonates with me in so many ways.

After two years of grieving the loss of her husband, Mary needs to get away from her friends and family that just don’t understand the pain that lives inside her heart and soul every minute of the day. Yes, this is a smutfest novella, a delicious holiday spice full of kinks. And I absolutely picked this one because of the smut. But I loved Mary’s character. Her pain, her anger, her passion, her strength. She took what she wanted, she let herself be taken. And Samson was perfect!

Being a short story, it’s hard to dive deep into a character’s backstory. But I felt like I knew Mary so well because her personality was everywhere in the prose. What really sold me on this novella was the humor that the author weaved in with the smut and sadness. I adored how meta the author took it with her many smut references and that Mary herself was an avid reader of smut. SO GOOD! And SO HOT!!

Make sure to read the trigger warnings if you have any!