Credence by Penelope Douglas

 

Penelope Douglas is one of those authors where I always think the premise of her books sounds AMAZING but then I read them and I'm, like, virtually disappointed every time. Katee Robert is like that for me, too. I've liked some of their works, but most of the time, I read their stuff and just end up feeling seriously disappointed.

I bought CREDENCE at a thrift shop for a quarter, which seemed like a good deal. Especially since this seems to be the most controversial of her works. I remember when it first came out, my feed was filled with people DNF-ing and going "EWWWW" which obviously made me want to find out what the fuck was going on, because I'm a glutton for punishment like that.

Tiernan is the daughter of a film producer and his starlet wife. When they find out that the father has cancer, the mom and the dad both kill each other-- and they don't even leave Tiernan a note. They're just like BYE BITCH. And they Romeo-and-Juliet themselves. Which is in standard keeping with what we find out about their personalities. They're garbage people who resented their kid because she took time away from their One True Love, and as soon as she was old enough to be foisted upon someone else, they totally did that. Honestly, it was completely fucked up, and added a whole other layer to Tiernan's already-existing emotional damage, because she didn't really mourn her parents because there wasn't much to mourn.

In a last ditch effort at parental responsibility, we find out that her parents have dumped Tiernan off on her step-uncle, Jake, a mountain man who builds dirt bikes and lives off the land, swinging his cock around like an axe as he pees on everything he owns to mark his territory. Or something like that. The drive to his remote cabin is appropriately tense and suspenseful and actually kind of reminded me of TWILIGHT with the cold, privileged girl "exiling" herself to somewhere forested and remote and filled with hot guys. Except I'm pretty sure Bella didn't bang her uncle. Renesmee, on the other hand...

ANYWAY, Jake has two sons, Noah and Kaleb. Noah is honestly the only one I kind of liked because I'm a sucker for the fuckboy with the heart of gold trope. Kaleb was fucking creepy though. I felt like he crawled out of an Omegaverse book and nobody ever told him to go back home, so he just stayed in this book, creepily sniffing people's hair and sexually assaulting women and basically just making me want to slam the book closed every time he or Jake appeared.

So here's the thing. This book made me feel gross. It's the kind of taboo I really don't like. Parental guardians abusing their privilege? Gross. I can take daddy kink and stepbrother erotica, but girls or boys banging stepfathers or stepuncles or teachers?? NO. And what adds an extra layer of gross to this is that they're total misogynists. Like, when Tiernan fixes the fridge to please them and has to take out all the fridge contents and put them back, he doesn't notice she fixed the fridge; he just assumes that she wanted to, like, rearrange the contents like it was a dollhouse. There's all kinds of "not like other girls" type lines, and naturally, Tiernan is a gold star virgin that they all fight over, and some sexual stuff happens well before she turns eighteen, although they don't bang her until she is eighteen, thank GOD.

The brothers doubling up on her and the creepy uncle sexfests just really put me off. I think the book was pretty well written for the most part but I just wish it had been about her and Noah and maybe the rapey uncle could have been the bad guy that Noah saved her from in my ideal version of this story. The setting was great, the girl-on-girl hate was tiring, and the alphahole caveman dickslinging made my vagina pack up its bags and move to that iconic dry desert town known as Nopeville.

*insert kombucha meme here*

1.5 out of 5 stars