Obsession: The bestselling psychological thriller with a shocking ending

I generally don't review a book I don't love but this one was so completely horrible, I feel obligated to my fellow readers.This is just plan bad. So bad, that I kept reading, unable to believe my eyes. The author. Is a terrible writer and she is all over the place...too many point of view, poorly drawn characters that weren't even acceptable stereotypes. Was it a religious book? A porn novel? A mystery? All of that and less.A book this terrible is offensive. I apologize to the author but do not buy this book. $2.99 can buy a small coffee or something.....anything...just not this sad excuse for a story

Oh, this book. I wanted to like it. I liked it at first. Then it went from bad to horrible to just plain awful. I had to make myself read to the end and the ending was a complete failure. The religious bs, the graphic, unrealistic sex, the characters without any, well, character....none of them likable. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Listen to the reviews, my fellow readers. Stay away.

As an avid reader who loves both horrer & psychological thrillers, I purchased Obsession by Amanda Robson in late December. I waited to read this book until I knew that I would have a couple of days when I could read it with few distractions. That being said, when the weather was cold and damp, and my arthritis put me on the sofa at about 9:00 pm on Thursday, January 11, I covered myself in a down comforter with a cup of tea and settled in for a good read. The book is written from the perspective of the four main characters, and is divided into seven parts. Part one opens with the voice of Carly. She's on a camping holiday with her husband Rob and their three children. Carly's first words are "I am drunk; liquid- limbed, mind-pumping drunk, and so is my husband Rob." Suffice it to say she is a "bitchy" drunk. She complains that she is having an awful time. Unlike some of us Moms who actually enjoy family vacations (even camping), she just feels that being on holiday in new & exciting places with her family I just hard work. Some of us would enjoy being in her position. She is able to work three days a week as a nurse in the Family Practice where her husband works and has her sweet Mom there to watch her children ( the children are usually fed & settled, so that when she and Rob come home they are able to eat a quiet dinner that Rob often prepares, then he enjoys helping her read bedtime stories and cuddles with the kids til they drop off to sleep. Then she and Rob may have a glass of wine and watch a crime show on the telly. How many of us wouldn't find that satisfying-especially when their night often ends in passionate sex? But I digress, while still on holiday that first night, she asks him mischievously "Who else would you go for, if you could?". Initially he answers " No one". Not content with that answer, she really pushes him for an answer.After about a page and a half, he shrugs his shoulders and mentions the name of one of her friends. Dude, I know you were tipsy too, but you should have simply named a movie star. Because, his answer sends this woman into a slow burning fit of jealousy. His answer starts a crazy rollercoaster of deceit, broken heart and ends up all twisted. I read until 5:50 am on Friday, slept for a bit then woke up to one of my own children's case of flu/ bronchitis. After that was handled and I tossed in some laundry, I began to read again. My hubby brought home some fast food, so I was able to finish by about 8:30pm. I had my own glass of wine and began to process what I'd just read. I decided to write a longer review because I could only give this book 3 stars. I can say that I will read more of Amanda Robson's work because I enjoyed her style, but this book left me feeling, as my 20 yr old would say "Meh.". The problem was, that none of the main characters was likeable. It could have ended with a different twist which would have made a secondary character more of an understanding villain. These folks were beyond flawed going into the category of creeps, as you'll see as you read it.

A silly book. Pornography masquerading as a “novel.” Parents so self-absorbed that the grandparents have to raise the grandchildren. No wonder they all end up dead.

I really enjoyed this book, and it definitely held my interest. There aren’t many books that motivate me to read until 2:30 AM, but this one did.My only criticisms:1. The characters are ALL pretty unlikable. Usually when I read a book I like to identify with at least one character and cheer them on. These are all sleazy adulterers. What saves it is that despite the fact that they’re unlikable, the characters are nicely developed and interesting.2. It jumps around a bit too much.3. It’s fairly unrealistic, but that’s why they call it fiction. It’s confusing why these people remain such good friends throughout the story considering how they treat each other!Positives:1. Fast paced, intriguing.2. Well developed characters, as I’ve said.I would recommend to anyone who likes a good psychological thriller.

Absolutely awful book. Ridiculous plot, horrible characters, sex addiction and all calling for religious guidance. A terrible waste even at $.99.

This book isn't great literature. Its not going to win the Pulitzer. But it's a perfect treat for those looking for a juicy, twisted, dramatic and somewhat dirty tale of two couples who are best friends. I read it in two days on a beach vacation. It starts with that terrible question all wives ask their husbands at some point. The "if you could sleep with any of my friends, who would it be?" question. Horrible question. And all hell breaks loose after that question is posed in the book. An easy, fun and fast read.

The quote in the front reads “unputdownable”....only if it was glued to your hand! Strange story line and characters that lacked development made this book hard to read. Half way through I considered quitting, but I wanted to see how it ended. The ending was quite a disappointment. If you want a depressing read then go for it.

Every now and then an e-book comes along that’s so comically bad it cheers you up by making you laugh so hard it hurts. This is that book in 2017.It’s hard to know where to start with it. The author has been on a creative writing course and it shows. She does that Dan Brown thing where every banal thing gets an adjective, because she’s been taught that that’s how you get your reader’s attention (“Breakfast in our modern townhouse, sitting at our kitchen table. Eating Weetabix. Sipping Nescafé.” Who cares?) The comedy starts early as a result ("Eyes on fire, I stand in front of him naked, my voluptuous body creamy and delicious, large brown nipples sticking out like toffee treasure, begging him to suck them.") Well, it's certainly nice she has no body image issues. How many mothers of two children describe themselves as "voluptuous", "creamy", and "delicious", and compare their own nipples to "toffee treasure" (I wasn't actually sure what "toffee treasure" was, so I Googled it and I'm none the wiser)? None that you meet in real life, that's for sure. It may all be true, but not many mothers think so.The author's also done that thing where, to save time having to describe them, the four characters are given jobs and the reader lets the clichés write themselves in. So we have a nurse (who’s a dirty tart with a perfect figure like all nurses, remember?), a doctor (phwooar, girls! Doctors!), a fireman (triple phwooar, girls! Firemen! Big burly firemen wielding their choppers!), and a happy clappy Christian (kumbaya!) who inexplicably turns into a dirty stopout.Even more inexplicably these four are all supposed to be friends, but how this can be is not clear. Doctors have two degrees and a high IQ which is a lot more than can be said for your average fireman, even one who jacked in being in a band and went to church choir so he could perform and there met his wife, like nobody ever. One struggles to imagine what they’d all talk about, but that’s not a problem here because you can’t tell any of them apart. They all think, speak and act in the same way. That way is the way of a middle-aged woman who’s been on a creative writing course, but who should really have been on a screen-writing course, because the dialogue is simply awful. I’ve read some dreadful wooden on-the-nose dialogue, but if a spark fell on any of this, you'd need the fireman handy to put the fire out.Then there are the hilarious chick-lit preoccupations with shoes, home décor, shoes, and shoes. I hate to break it to the author, but men famously do not register things like “her red shoes, red lipstick and lemon-bleached fifties hairstyle”, any more than a woman would notice whether Craig’s car is the 1.8 or the 2-litre. These are utter trivia that are entirely beneath notice. Funnier still, when Craig the fireman gets to grips with one of the women, I forget which, he shares that “My cock is pulsating in my pants, so much so that it hurts.… She smells of roses and patchouli oil. She is my angel.” Well, I’m sorry, but how preposterous. Leaving aside the problem that I can't hear the word "pants" without thinking of Rik Mayall, how many men know what patchouli oil smells like? How many care when there’s a bit of pulsating afoot downstairs?I really struggled with this bit. Maybe Craig and the appliance were once called out to deal with a conflagration at the local patchouli oil bottling plant? But that can’t be it, because shortly afterwards, we learn that Rob, who's never attended a patchouli oil blaze, is just as clued up on the matter - “She smells and tastes of patchouli oil and honey.” So old Craig seems to have slipped up there, not picking up on the honey. But by page 209, I regret to report that the whole patchouli thing is getting seriously out of hand because Carly, the slutty cursing nurse, is now on about it too (“I smell your scent of honey and patchouli oil”)! Blimey! She certainly trowels on that patchouli! But the last word on the patchouli has to be left to ole Rob, I reckon (Rob’s the doctor; keep up). “You step towards me,” goes Rob, “as you did last time when Carly and I visited, smelling of musk and patchouli oil. Embalming me with your eyes.” Aaaaah, so that's it! Rob knows what patchouli smells like because he's a doctor, and it resembles the embalming fluid they use on the corpses when he loses a patient! Or maybe he once treated a patient who'd slipped in a puddle of patchouli oil? Or maybe there's been a blaze at the local chapel of rest among the oil-soaked embalmed corpses, to which Craig the fireman was summoned amid clouds of reeking patchouli smoke? If so, that should have been an early scene in the book, in my humble opinion, and it would also have afforded Craig an opportunity to smell of patchouli too.Then there’s the wanking. There’s a lot of it, mainly by Carly, and you’ll think twice about shaking hands with any nurses or indeed anyone else called Carly ever again. We hear no less than four times about the “springy bud of my clitoris“, which is “like a taut piece of guitar wire” apparently. Now I'm a man of the world, but I'm thinking hard here and, being delicate - I'm really not seeing it. Funnier still is Craig and his "pumping": he’s pumping on page 40, twice in fact, and there’s more pumping on page 277. Well, he is a fireman, I suppose.One could go on - the author sure does. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, but mostly you’ll laugh and yawn at the same time.

I managed four chapters of this book before I gave it up as a bad job. Skipped to three or four points in the book to the end. No Improvement. Complete drivel.

Carly, a married nurse and mum of three becomes obsessed with her best friend's husband and embarks on a torrid affair. A trail of lies and destruction follows. This is a competent thriller though the characters are unlikable with many flaws and the first person present narrative make it an uncomfortable read.

Amanda Robson's debut novel is a corker in the psychological thriller genre. There are four main characters, Rob and Carly who are married, and Craig and Jenni. Each chapter is written in the first person POV of one of these characters. It all begins when Carly, during an alcohol-fueled conversation with her husband Rob asks him who he fantasises about when they are having sex. The seed has been sown by the answer given, and an obsession begins to grow dangerously spreading it's tendrils in a way that will put a stranglehold of deception and fear for each of the four characters.This dark novel had it all for me, jealousy and paranoia, with lashings of hot steamy sex. What more could anyone want? I cannot wait for Amanda Robson's second novel to be released.

To be honest I found this story overlong and somewhat drawn out. I was beginning to lose concentration waiting for the twist that never came . It needed a big twist to give impact. Not sure I like the short chapters and the same me this used by so many writers of using the name of the character.This author has potential but needs to learn how to create a real punch to stay in the ring

I don’t normally read this kind of book, but being a psychological thriller it caught my attention and I’m very glad it did. It’s an easy, well written accessible read and you’re quickly drawn into the story, initially from heroine Carly’s point of view. Carly is married to good natured doctor Rob, and their friends Jenni and Craig soon enter the tale and all kinds of sparks fly in every imaginable direction. The story is told from different points of view, which makes for interesting reading, and somehow this author has the knack of making you long to know what is going to happen – the ‘skip forward I can’t wait’ syndrome. I can tell you this : plenty does happen – some of it exciting, some of it quite sexy, and some of it tragic. From the start you really want to know what happens to these four people and that urge never leaves you. It’s an extremely satisfying easy read and the tension builds and builds towards the many climaxes (of various kinds). If you want an easy read, that’s sexy, exciting and supremely gripping, this is for you. But be warned: once you start you cannot put it down.

A real page-turner and a different approach in story telling styleGreat summer holiday read!

This was a decent enough book, but I think it just went on too long in places and got a bit over wrought. I would ideally give it 3.5 stars.The story starts with bored wife and mother Carly, asking her husband Rob if he has ever thought of other women. Rob hasn’t, not really, except maybe the odd thought about doe eyed Jenni, one half of another couple they hang around with.Carly seems to be unhappy with life in general and this is later presented as depression. She dwells on her husband’s remark and then decides to embark on an affair with Craig, Jenni’s husband.I think there was a decent story within all the bed hopping and angst. Carly had the main voice within the book and, while not exactly likeable, she was more developed.The other characters just seemed like bit parts, particularly the husbands. Rob, the saintly Doctor husband and Craig, the walking cliché and deliverer of some cringeworthy lines (“Jenni starves me, x feeds me”).Both husbands also seemed to have some fairly unpleasant attitudes to women and operated in a 1970s haze of “well, if it’s offered on a plate/I couldn’t help myself”.The most interesting character was Jenni, a saintly practising Christian, a doe eyed gentle, meditating vegetarian. Yet still waters run deep, I thought Jenni was sadly relegated to shorter more skimped over chapters while the rest of story centred around the vapid Carly and her endless whines.It was enjoyable and I read to the end, but I think it ran out steam just as the plot started to get more interesting. It was like a book of two halves in a way, an in depth first half about a woman’s extra marital affair which was, somehow, all her friend’s fault. Then a darker, more complex story in the second half that got a bit rushed and overlooked.

I bought this book because of the good reviews but now having read it, I can't understand why so many are raving about it. The book didn't seem to go any where, it lacked a real story and to be honest, it became quite boring. I expected more and was disappointed.The actual style of writing was descriptive amd it was interesting to read from the perception of each of the four main characters. But that wasn't enough for me, after over 400 pages of a story that could have been told in half that, I won't be buying anymore from this author.

Well I loved this book in fact I did it all in one new day and it's a long book. I was disappointed when it ended as it was addictive and I wanted more,more more ! All the charecters were flawed and you really wouldn't want to know them but when you read the story you understand why. It's about two couples and their friendship . Mmmn sounds boring I hear you say. Err no anything but. It's salacious , scandalous and shocking. It is a totally guilty ride for the reader more than anyone . It's like knowing someone's secrets but they get worse and worse. It's very different from anything I've read but I devoured every twist,turn and shocking moments. More please , Amanda Robson .... I need more !

First book I've read from Amanda Robson- and it wont be my last!Obsession is told from 4 points of view....a husband and wife in 2 couples.What seems like an innocent question- If you were allowed to sleep with one person outside of your marriage who would it be?And the answer one husband gives- sets off a whole chain of events.I found the book a little heavy on the religion side at times- I understood 2 of the characters were heavily religious- but sometimes it overtook the story.

This is a story about 2 couple's Carly and Rob and Jenni and Craig and how their friendship evolves and how paranoia can ruin relationships. The story then becomes dark when an affair rocks them all to the core and we follow the journey of revenge with twists and turns galore it keeps you guessing right up until the end. It's told in the first person but from all four different points of view which I enjoyed and that surprised me but it's something I think more authors could adopt. I would recommend this book it's a good story well constructed with believable characters and it's got a bit of sexual content that's not too heavy it's well written too. I liked this book a lot.

I was enjoying this read until a small paragraph in which the author utilises the novel as a platform to slate and name call the emergency services. It was so out of place and bizarre, I struggled to carry on reading after this and have put the book in recycling (have never thrown a book away before now) a few chapters short of the end. My review would have been so much different without the one paragraph but it left a sour taste and I'm disappointed to have purchased the book and certainly will be avoiding this author in the future.

Never in a million years did I think I'd want to read another psycho-thriller after the last disastrous attempt at one but this was 'unputdownable' as far as I'm concerned. Part one of the book could have perhaps been toned down a bit (it's laughable now to think of the row that 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' once caused) and I wondered if I was going to make it through to the end. However, the rest of it had me wondering how it was all going to turn out and I would never have foreseen how it actually ended. It's good, too, reading a book with a decent title especially after the unimaginative 'Little Tea Shop by the Sea' types which flood the shelves these days.

This book had promise and i really was expecting something clever but the whole thing was totally unbelievable and the characters totally unlikable. I skipped so much of this to get the very disappointing end. Far fetched and utterly ridiculous. A few hours of my life I'll not get back!