Priest by Sierra Simone

🌟 I read this for the Yule Bingo Challenge, for the category of Dumbledore: wise mentor. For more info on this challenge, click here. 🌟

People were losing their sh*t over this book when it came out two years ago, and then it showed up on the Kindle freebie section one day and I was like, "Yeah, okay, free is good. I'll read it for free." And then I promptly put off reading it because a) a romance with priests??? and b) a rich girl who just can't stand her #RichGirlProblems anymore and decides to run off and be bad??? and c) pointless tension and drama???????

I was skeptical.

PRIEST starts off okay. Tyler is a pretty sympathetic character. He became a priest because his younger sister was molested by the priest of their church, and keeping it a secret caused her to take her own life. I guess he became a priest as a way of redeeming the religion he grew up with and proving himself that it doesn't have to be all bad. (I'm a little unclear about this.) He's also a "typical" man who's into things other "typical" men are into, like The Walking Dead and going to the gym.

One day, a woman named Poppy comes to his confessional and starts telling him all these outrageous things that she's done, and another thing joins that "typical man" interest list: sex. Unfortunately, he can't have any, and especially not with her, but this is a romance novel, and if you think that it all ends there, pull up a seat, because you must be new here.

What results is a pornfest that's like 80% sex, 10% emotional whinging, and 10% actual plot. I think part of what turned me off this book the most is that it tries so hard to be edgy. Poppy is a rich girl who decided to flip the bird to her family by throwing her expensive education in the garbage and stripping for money. But not just anywhere - no, Poppy assures us that she strips for a place where the girls look "expensive" and all the dudes there are more than capable of paying that hefty price tag, and all her lingerie is expensive, it's described as "champagne"-colored, and Tyler totally buys it.

And Tyler: Tyler, Tyler, Tyler - this dude was not cut out for the priesthood. He's almost as sex-obsessed as Poppy, and the two of them do it in the church several times, which just seems tacky. Not only is that blasphemous AF, that's like having sex in the workplace. That's gross. They also make some "creative" uses of various church implements, like the purificator (ew) and the altar (ew). We find out that he was the go-to guy at his college for kinky doings, so I'm wondering if he loved sex so much, why this job? Surely there are other ways to go about advocating reform?

The relationship between them is also super gross. Poppy is such a user, and I couldn't stand how she was always yanking him around and mocking him on the (rare) instances when he remembered his women's studies classes from college and tried to be all about that consenting adult life. She mocked him for it! Like, GIRL. You are 100% being part of the problem right now. The addition of Sterling was also annoying, because how many gross people do we need in this story? WE'RE AT MAXIMUM OCCUPANCY, SORRY - GET OUT. I rolled my eyes at the "big misunderstanding" at the end, and rolled them even more when they celebrate their togetherness by having sex -

IN ANOTHER CHURCH.

Tyler wasn't a bad hero, but in this profession, with this heroine, in this story? Yeah, it wasn't good. The sex scenes were pretty hot but there were so many of them they all began to blend together. I guess I was hoping for a modern version of THE CARDINAL SINS and not "I F***ed the Priest!"

2 out of 5 stars