This was just bad. I was hoping at first it was just translation issues, but I am realizing this is more of a not clearly marketing what this is issue. Worst being the strangely Twilight possessive-ness vibes it gave.

This book was a whirlwind and my thoughts about it varied while reading!

My initial impression of the writing was that this book would be more like a thriller, based on the author’s writing style, but gradually it shifted into more of a YA dark romance — which I didn’t realize existed until I read this. I totally would’ve been obsessed with this storyline at 15-17 years old, but some of the melodrama wasn’t my cup of tea as a 20-something-year-old woman.

*Content worth knowing about before picking up this book is mention of child abuse throughout the book, as the two main characters grew up in an orphanage ran by an abusive matron. There is also a theme of abandonment. At times, this story is heavy & may be hard for some to read.*

I found myself incredibly conflicted over how I felt about the story, and the complex relationship that blooms between Nica & Rigel. Forbidden love is a trope that is pretty popular, but the messiness of their situation (potential adoptive siblings) is a lot to take in. I was simultaneously rooting for them and cringing about the circumstances that led them there! I often had to remind myself that the main characters were 17/18 for the majority of the book, because they were facing such grown struggles & their dialogue felt more mature than young adult.

As things got messier and lines got blurred, I had a hard time putting this book down. At the 70% mark things take a turn and get pretty intense, I genuinely didn’t know how the book would end. There was drama right up until the epilogue!

All in all, I was entertained by this book & would rate it a 3.5 out of 5 stars! I’m rounding up to a 4 because it certainly consumed my attention while reading it, though it wasn’t fully my style of romance. I can see how it could be adapted for TV, as it read like romantic drama or telenovella!

Other notable tropes:
* Touch her and ☠️
* Forced proximity
* Healing trauma
* Lovable side characters
* Found family

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this book to read and honestly review.

I really enjoyed reading this, it had everything that I was looking for from this type of book. It uses the dark elements perfectly and had the character development that I was hoping for. Erin Doom wrote this perfectly and cared about what was going on with the characters in this world. The teens felt like real people and I was invested in what happened with them.

I absolutely love this story. The depth of the characters and the dialogue they both share to counter their traumas is beautiful. Five stars. Can’t wait to see the film adaptation.

Note to publisher: I do wish the formatting the ebook was sent in was done so in a way I had control over the font size and type. It was very hard to read because of that but didn’t take away from the story of course. Just took me longer to get through because I had to keep zooming in.

5 stars

The Tearsmith is a contemporary romance. It is a very slow building. There are time jumps and a number of flashbacks, there is bullying and a bit of enemies to lovers, forced proximity tropes in this story. This book is definitely on the darker side with quite a few hard topics and difficult situations. It had me in Tears about 75 percent of the time, both heartbreakingly sad tears and happy full of joy tears. This book will put you through the ringer with the emotional rollercoaster it is going to send you through, and I loved it. Please be mindful and check content warnings before picking this book up. The writing style for this book was perfect, it painted such an elaborate and emotional story, that it affected me at so many levels. I could not put this down. It had such an impact on me, and I was waiting and wanting to get that happy moment when things finally changed. There was a little bit of repetitiveness that happened, but it did not take away from this story.
Trigger warnings: child abuse, death of a loved one, bullying,
I received an ebook, via Netgalley. This review is my own honest opinion.

A unique read, a love story with some fantasy elements. It was a bit too long for me and I think some things were lost in translation but I'm looking forward to seeing this on Netflix!

*Thank you so much to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to review an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

2.5 stars rounded up. While the idea behind the story is beautiful, the book feels like it just goes on and on with no purpose. It easily could have been 150 pages shorter, if not more. The story moves slowly, the romantic relationship grumpy vs. Sunshine,touch her. You die is slow burn and is ok. There are a few short smutty scenes.

this was such a beautiful coming of age romance! I love that more and more international books are being translated to English, it gives a whole new perspective on reading. I definitely enjoyed and would recommend this!

I wanted to read something that would make me cry - this got it. Erin Doom was not holding her punches for Tearsmith. The adventure of going through the complex and difficult lives of two teenagers was a wild ride, especially as someone who is now an adult dealing with childhood trauma and what it is to unravel it. The fantasy elements was bizarre to me, but it's not like I didn't enjoy it. I think it was a great way to depict abuse - as horrible as that is.. Doom did a great job writing this and it was moving, heartbreaking, and interesting all at once.

An excellent dark romance with the step sibling trope portayed in such an interesting way.

The romantic tension in this is. It's insane. And it's incorporated so well in a general setting filled with impending sadness/doom. From the very start of the book you know. You're awaiting the most heavy trauma possible to unreveal itself regarding the past of the two MCs and their connection with each other both in the past and the present to be heavily affected by it. And this doom is delivered in a mind blowing way - seriously the angst in this book is SO well portayed I am going feral over it. The love being build while tragedy is revealed and strikes again and again - ugh it was Portayed perfectly

In offering my perspective on The Tearsmith by Erin Doom, I respectfully acknowledge that while it may resonate with other readers, it didn't quite align with my personal preferences. Though I recognize its potential appeal to a different audience, I found that it didn't capture my interest in the way I had hoped.

I am sorry to have to do this but I got to 50% through this book and I had to DNF. I don't know if something was lost with this story when it was translated from Italian to American but it was very confusing and the flow of the book didn't feel right. I couldn't not understand their love situation and everything about it just felt very weird to me. I am not going to be able to rate this book since I DNF it.

Nica and Rigel are both raised in an abusive orphanage and both are impacted differently by the experience. Nica is scarred, timid, and eager to please. Rigel is hardened, controlling, and violent. Their relationship to each other and the world intensifies when they are both adopted into the same family. Will something beautiful come from their shared ugly past?

This book was a very strong “meh” for me and I will admit to skimming some of it. It is well written, but it is also unnecessarily long. I like a slow burn as much as the next person, but this slow burn moves at a glacial pace for me. I thought it ended well and it took forever to get there. I also had a hard time connecting to any of the characters in this book. They all seemed so shallow and unlikable in general.

This wasn’t the book for me and it is worth a shot if you like slow burn dark romances.

I didn’t know what to expect with this book. It was dark and twisty but interesting and had a few twists. When I thought the book was closer to the end I realized I still had 40% left of the book. It jumps 3 years which was great but sort of dragged on a bit. I felt some things could have been left out and it would still have been a great story.

This was a journey for me. It took me a while to figure out what felt different about this to me. Doom, in making these characters deal with the worst things ever, didn't make me depressed per se. I think the harrowing trauma and triumph over that was well earned.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Dell, and Netgalley for providing an eARC for a honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley for the arc. I formally apologize to everyone who wrote fan fiction on Wattpad because you all deserve better than this. The Tearsmith has broken my brain in a way that hasn't happened in a while; the book's opening starts in the same way that every 'I was sold to One Direction' meme does. Nica is told to pack her bags as she has a new family, who are very wealthy and have a mysterious son named Rigel. It's not long before the two begin a relationship that, in my eyes, is doomed to place them in therapy for the next six years.
Nica is a bland self-insert that makes watching paint dry interesting; like all self-insert characters, her primary trait is that she is pure and untouched by a man. Meanwhile, Rigel is very creepy and would make any human cover their drink within six feet of him. Doom may have been going for enemies to lovers with how their relationship starts, but enemies to lovers don't work when one-half of the pairing makes the reader want to vomit when he makes a move.
I also must include the crimes this book commits: Rigel refers to Nica over half the time as a "little moth," which, as a moth enjoyer, made me very uncomfortable; Doom cannot write romance, and much like Colleen Hover may need to switch to the thriller genre, and finally the worst crime The Tearsmith commits is that the book is almost 600 pages, there is no world in which a romance novel needs to be the same length as The Secret History and Crooked Kingdom.
For the love of your eyes and brain cells, please skip The Tearsmith.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to review this book. All opinions are my own.

I wish I liked this book more, but I just couldn't connect with the characters. I hope the Netflix show helps sort this out.

This book was an absolute mess. It was unnecessarily long with so many random subplots that did not need to exist and some did not make any sense at all. The editing was dismal. This felt like some kind of wattpad self-published nonsense. While I did finish the book, it felt like a waste.

Before I get to my review, I would like to say that this is a translated book, it was originally written in Italian. I wanted to point this out because I saw some reviews saying it had a lot of typos and misspelled words, it doesn’t, it’s just translated to British English and not American English.

I’m conflicted on whether or not I actually liked this book. I thought it was a fantasy and sped through the first 150 pages excepting something to happen and it never did, about halfway though the book it becomes clear that nothing big is going to happen. I would have been fine with that if it was a 300 page or less book however it is 550 pages. However, I feel like a lot of that could have been cut out, it is a very repetitive story. For the first half of the book we hear over and over how much Nica doesn’t like Rigel, different words but same sentiment. The second half of the book is Nica telling us how in love she is with Rigel over and over, much of this could have been cut without changing the story. My biggest issue with the book is that both of Nicas love interests have huge red flags. Rigel is violent and possessive, and Lionel was controlling and jealous. I would have less of an issue of there was any character development with Rigel and he changed even a little but he doesn’t and there is no mention, by the author or any of the characters in the book about how wrong his behavior is.

I would only recommend this book if you are into dark romance, however I do think it’ll make for a good Netflix teen drama.