Aaliyah's Book Corner

Damn Booktok. I usually get my book recs from Threads, IG, or Goodreads but the way that this book was on my Tiktok’s FYP convinced me to read it. Y’all, I had to close the book several times and take a quick lap around my tiny living room because what in the actual f*** did I read? When a book starts out strong and intriguing but flickers a third of the way in and loses me halfway… I almost DNF’d Toxic but my mama didn’t raise a quitter. Okay and I wanted to see what happened in the end. I should have just kept the damn pages pressed together and the book in the dark recesses of my shelf.

Plot

Toxic follows Tessa Emerson who is in an abusive marriage. She works as a nurse at a prison and her piece of shit husband, Vic, is the prison warden. She endures a lot from physical and emotional abuse to being watched by coworkers who report back to Vic. She longs for an escape and slowly builds up to it as the story begins. Tessa’s life abruptly changes when Gracin Kingsley enters her life as an inmate who broaches her boundaries and truly notices the bruises and signs of abuse that she exhibits. The attraction is immediate but Tessa wards him off albeit reluctantly. Things progress rapidly as Gracin stages a jailbreak and uses Tessa as a shield, giving her the chance to finally break free of her marriage and persona curated to please society.

Tropes

Forbidden Romance– Tessa and Gracin are off limits to each other in several ways, the most prominent being that Tessa is married. There is also the fact that he’s an inmate and she’s the nurse in charge of him while he works at the prison. 

Forced Proximity– The prison begins this trope as Tessa tends to Gracin’s initial injuries. Once he’s settled into a routine, he gets paired to work with her for a few hours a week. The curiosity that the two have about each other grows quickly and the proximity gets even closer when Gracin kidnaps Tessa and forces her to stay at his home.

Morally Grey– Gracin and Tessa are both flawed individuals, with the former’s childhood being crappy and the latter staying in harmful situations. They seem to feed each other’s dark sides, especially later in the story. We go into the action knowing that Gracin is dangerous and a killer but Tessa’s growth into a morally bankrupt girlie was interesting. 

Unforgettable Moments

1. The prison escape
2. The torture scene
3. Tessa’s imprisonment at the mansion

Rating

3 / 5 

I was drawn in by the synopsis and the beginning of the story. A nurse at a prison falling for an inmate and escaping her abusive marriage? Heck yeah! But the book let me down and I’m sticking firmly to my recs from Threads. Still love ya, Booktok… Sometimes.

If you’ve read Toxic, I would love to hear your thoughts. One of my co-workers and I dissected the book and agreed that we would thoroughly vet any potential reads from Booktok because this wasn’t the best rec from the oh so powerful platform.

Oh and you can find me on social media (IG, Threads, TikTok, etc) plus you should follow the blog for more recs and other bookish content.