No. Just no. The premise of this sounded so good but the writing was just so crass. This seemed like a 50 Shades of Grey book just done poorly. I only got about 50% in when I simply couldn’t take it anymore.
Unfortunately this was a big miss for me.

My curiosity about this book was piqued after I watched the movie on Netflix and read some of the rave reviews. This certainly isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read but I think something got lost in the translation from Polish to English - there’s lots of repetition, among other issues!

I won’t repeat the synopsis but I felt the relationship between Laura and Massimo was rushed, and the constant use of the phrase “baby girl” was a little irritating. This is a totally escapist bit of reading if you don’t mind the troublesome non-con aspects of the story. The ending didn’t bother me but be warned: it’s a cliffhanger!

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

After watching the Netflix series of 365 Days, I was looking forward to reading the book behind it all. The storyline does a good job of matching my expectations from what I'd watched.

Let's say start by saying this movie version on Netflix is hot, and I loved it. I've been waiting for the English version of this book forever and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to read and it was just as HOT as the film.

365 Days is steamy, sexy and just OMG with the characters. You couldn't help yourself to hate, but love Massimo Torricelli. He's dangerous, rich, rough, and a criminal, but can be oh so sweet to Laura.

As you know, he kidnaps Laura and give her 365 days to fall for him and if it doesn't work out, he will let her leave. Sure, it sounds terrible and awful, but Laura has free reign of her life. Laura is not a meek and mousy character - she's sassy, independent and knows how to push Massimo's buttons! That is what I loved about her - she didn't cower from him.

I'm ready for more in this series!

Hold on people - if you watched the movie and thought that the book would be better you may want to think differently. Unless you really read it for the story and not just the sex. Massimo and Laura are so much more than just lust and mayhem. Just like with another misunderstood character in the 50 Shades Series, this book left me with wanting to know more from Massimo's POV. There is so much more to this story than what was displayed in the movie - I hope that this becomes two books - one from Laura and one from Massimo POV.

“Sometimes I get the impression you forget who I am. I can change for you, when I am with you, but I won’t change for everybody else. If I want something, I get it. I would have kidnapped you that day or some other one. It was just a matter of time and methods.”

Laura has a full life. She has a job she is good at, the love of her friends, and on the surface- seems to have it all together. But something is missing.

Massimo. The don. He is used to getting everything he asks for. He’s in charge, and does not take no as an answer in regards to him or his needs. After a near death experience, Laura comes to him in a vision. She is his obsession; and ultimately his weakness.

“365 Days”, by Blanka Lipinska was originally written and published in Polish. After coming out on Netflix in 2020, it was also written in an English translation and will release on February 2nd. It follows the series of events that surround Laura and Massimo. Laura and Massimo are fire and ice. She is a prisoner in his world, and is slowly unraveling while bringing her walls down. It is definitely an insta-love feel, as that moves quickly in the story itself. Their emotional and sexual connection was perfect, I just struggled with some of the word choice and phrasing - as I had to go back and re-read to check for understanding, as well as skip over some parts because the word choice was repetitive.

Overall, this was a good read - and coming from watching the film first, I loved the overall storyline of the book and enjoyed how it was meant to be told.

I don’t quite know what to do with this book. I did see the Netflix movie and enjoyed it. That's mostly the reason I wanted to read this book - I wanted to see if it explained more of the parts that confused me from the movie. And it did. I did enjoy some of this book. But there were some major issues as well. While I don’t mind romance like this in general, this was too much. There were so many issues of consent, violence and abuse that it was just overwhelming at times. I also kept bouncing between enjoying the characters and REALLY hating them. When the story was moving along and I was getting more of the overall picture, the characters were an interesting part of that. But then in the sections that got bogged down with the sex and jealousy, they became frustrating. I did think that the book explained some parts that were left out of the movie and the end of this was not quite so frustrating (though still a somewhat frustrating cliffhanger). I don’t know if I would read the second book. I would probably watch the second movie though.

***2 Stars***

Like most who will be picking this book up, it was because of the movie since it made a huge splash in the romance reading community and was extremely hawt! But while I found the movie quite enjoyable for what it was, the book just didn't do it for me. I'm not all that disturbed by the dubious consent, or lack thereof in all honesty, I just had issues getting fully into the words even though I knew going in this book was translated from Polish to English. The flow just wasn't there for me and, for lack of a better way to put it, things were lost in translation and so was my interest.

I so wasted to like this book because I enjoyed the movie but this book was horrible, I don’t know if it was because it was a poor translation to the book published quickly but definitely was not what I expected of it after watching the movie.

i thought I’d give this a chance after watching the movie which was scorching hot. But what the movie has in hotness the book lacks in plot. While i understand this came from the English translation from the very successful Wattpad novel, i just couldn’t get it. The sex scenes were fairly bland as was the dialogue. I k ow that mafia romances are all the rage, but kidnapping and lack of consent are hard to make sexy for me.

Hmm, this book made me cringe. I like a good alpha male but this was way too toxic for my taste. There was nothing appealing about either character, Massimo introduction was a turnoff.

Let's start out by being blunt: this is one of the most blatantly harmful books that I have ever read. I read this because I had heard so many people buzzing about the movie based on it last summer (which I have not seen and now definitely won't), and wow do I regret it. Not only does this glamorize an extremely abusive relationship, but it does so while also being extremely misogynistic and fatphobic. And on top of my issues with the content, the book itself had horrible pacing and the plot made absolutely no sense. This book was just all around a HARD miss for me, and if you somehow still have any intention to read it, please take care of yourself and be mindful of any trigger warnings.

TW: sexual assault, coercion, kidnapping, emotional manipulation, murder, violence, slut shaming, food shaming, drug/alcohol use

TikTok made me do it!!! I of course heard about the movie first on TikTok and hopped onto Netflix to see what it was all about. STEAM CENTRAL!! So of course when I heard it was a book I was allll over that! i've had it o my TBR list for awhile and then saw it o NetGalley. This site always has my back with good books!! Let's be honest, this is smutty, sexy and problematic. The romance isn't the most realistic and the submissive/dominant theme is STRONG, but one woman's trash is another woman's treasure!

After watching the Netflix adaptation of 365dni, I was excited to hear that the book was going to be translated and published in English. Unfortunately, my excitement dropped once I started reading the book and I found myself skimming and skipping over a lot of the story. I think a lot of things were lost in translation, and the way the story was told didn't have a good flow......so it was hard to get into the story and connect with the characters. Plus, the way Laura kept calling Massimo "The Man in Black" really drove me nuts - I think i counted her saying that at least 10 times in the span of a few paragraphs, which was a little much for my liking.

365 days is a mafia romance to the extreme. Laura Biel is kidnapped and given 365 days to fall in love with her captor, mafia boss don Massimo. While the story is intriguing the translation was done so poorly it was distracting. Surely they could have come up with a word other than 'snatch'! Because of the immense popularity after the hit Netflix movie I had higher hopes for this English version. I really think that one or two more passes with an editor could really benefit this book.

It is with sincere apologies to inform that I could not finish reading this book. I really tried, but it really did not work for me. Although I know it was translated from Polish to English, it really was not done well. Certain words and phrases just did not sit well for me.

Laura Biel is a young woman, highly successful in her career, with a caring family and a romantic relationship that seems perfect, but it is not.

Laura feels sexually unsatisfied with her boyfriend because they don't have a steamy sex life. He prefers to spend time with his laptop than with her.

Don Massimo Torricelli is a powerful, dangerous, and dominant man. He was born in the Sicilian mafia and stopped at nothing. A few years ago, he suffered a terrible accident that caused some hallucinations about a beautiful and unknown woman. Since he woke up, Massimo has looked for her everywhere and has become obsessed with her.

As fate would have it, Laura will go on vacation to Sicily, where Massimo will meet with his beloved object of obsession. Immediately, Massimo orders Laura's kidnapping.

When Laura wakes up in Massimo's mansion, he proposes a deal: 365 with him in exchange for not hurting his family. During this time, Massimo will either make her fall in love or let her go.

My impressions
WOW.
These kinds of stories - powerful men kidnapping women who end up falling in love with them - are nothing new. They were very famous in 2015 and even before.
However, 365 by Blanka Lipińska shines on its own.

At the beginning of the book, the sexual tension between Massimo and Laura is intense. You can almost feel Laura's desire to surrender to him even though she doesn't want to.

Maybe if Massimo had approached her differently, she would still have fallen in love with him because Massimo proposes the kind of passion that she craved.

Laura comes to live a dream life, filled with luxury, extravagant trips, expensive dresses, and plenty more.

Then there are times of tension and terror because of the dangers Laura faces when living with a mob boss. I didn't expect the cliffhanger because I didn't know it was a series. I just hope they translate the rest of the series soon.

My rating is 5.5 stars because this book is incredibly sexy and intense. It goes straight to my best of the year list.

And now I'm going to watch the movie on Netflix. YAY!

So I’m typically a thriller book reader but I just had to jump in and check this one out after seeing so much hype and oh my gosh I was not disappointed! I think I have a new guilty pleasure! Blanka is a really amazing writer and I loved the characters so much! Even the ones I really should hate, I still loved! Can’t wait until the next book is published in English! And oh, boy. The STEAM factor!!! Yes, please!

Thanks so much to Atria via NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review!

This was not for me. Too many consent issues for me to overlook and some pretty obvious Stockholm Syndrome.

YIKES! That is the only way to start this review. So, obviously, I have watched the movie on Netflix and that was why I read this. I knew what I was getting myself into but holy moly this was so bad. I hate writing long reviews of why I didn't enjoy a book but I want to be clear why I didn't enjoy this at all.

FIRST OF ALL. Yes, there is a lot more story in the book that the movie skipped over but sometimes that "story" was too much. There is a huge difference between enjoying sex rougher than others, BDSM and ABUSE. I hope to not offend anyone here but his attitude towards her was abusive. At one point he even said I won't stop if you tell me to.... UH NO. It doesn't matter when or if she said yes to start but the moment NO/STOP are used it is abusive to keep going... and the fact that she "loved" it was neatly horrifying. It wasn't stockholm syndrome... it was abuse and horrible.

Second. Some of the sex scenes were so unbelievable and NOT sexy that it was confusing. I have read my fair share of sexy times book that lean more towards darkness and while it may not be me thing I can read it.... this was cringeworthy.

Third. So many of the translations didn't make sense... there was one scene that I think was supposed to be a dream but it was so confusing. I understand that some things don't translate well but this did not get translated very well.

Fourth... ha... maybe it was just me but she seemed obsessed with the idea of "gay men" and constantly felt like it was not said in a way that was positive. It felt very odd to me.

As I said, I usually just like to say no I didn't like it, but this book was a train wreck and with so many waiting for it because of the movie I felt I had to be fully honest.

This was a HARD PASS for me. I won't be reading more if its translated.