Caught Up by Navessa Allen - My Review

"He's a ruthless walking red flag. Good thing red is my favorite color." And after this book, it might be mine now too... *SPOILERS AT THE BOTTOM*

There were a lot of books coming out this year that I was excited for. But hands down, without a doubt, I was most excited for this book. I was the countdown tracker for my girls chat on when this was coming out. I had everything pre-ordered and I even finished all the other books I was reading so I could give it all my attention and time.

Not gonna lie, I was a little nervous about this one. Second books aren’t all ACOMAF’s. Also, I’m not sure how many books she was able to contract under this series, so I wasn’t sure how this book would be structured with the overall plot. But I remained hopeful and as the PR and marketing kept coming out, particularly the narrators and the audio sample, I felt a little easier and got more excited for it.

If there is anything you need to know about me is that I have ZERO patience. I hate waiting in lines (I have walked out of grocery stores hungry and literally would rather starve), love reading the last page first, I always need to know what happens, and binge any TV show I like even if it keeps me up far past my bedtime. I know I’m savage and have been scolded by everyone about it, I already know. I have been trying to work on it… All that to say is that I wanted (and really easily could have) read this book in a day. But I forced myself to try to “savor” the book. I decreased my listening speed down to 1.8x and only listened to it when I was 100% focused on it and not multitasking. It wasn’t easy. I was able to make it last three days, which for me is progress, but the jury is still out on if it was worth it.

I tried to keep my feelings neutral while reading, because I didn’t want to ride the hype and I tried to not set any expectations. I started this book first out of my three book besties, so I would check in when they would ask about it. I checked in at 30% through and already liked where it was going. I knew it wasn’t going to disappoint, but still not sure if it would top Lights Out, match it, or maybe just be good but not as good. Halfway I really was enjoying it and anticipated enjoying just as much if it kept it up, and by the end I LOVED this book. It’s tough to say if it's better than Lights Out. Only because the characters and vibes are different. While Lights Out is considered a dark romance, I always tell people it’s more of a ‘light’ dark comedy romance. Neither of the characters are actually dark, they just end up in a dark plot. Caught Up actually has a darker characters, mainly the MMC, and I would argue a lighter plot in a dark environment. So it’s tough to compare the two. I loved them both and would still give both the same overall rating.

I listened to this book and would read along on my Kindle. I have to give it to the narrators, they killed it. Teddy Hamilton was perfect as Junior. Initially I was bummed it wouldn’t be the same narrators as Lights Out, but I quickly realized you needed a different voice and vibe for Junior and it was perfect. Kasi Hollowell also does a great job. She balanced the confidence and insecurity of the FMC really well and her side character narration was also a highlight favorite of mine!

Caught Up follows Nico “Junior” Trocci, Aly’s mob cousin from Lights Out and introduces Lauren “Lo” Marchetti, his first love from high school, who is now an online sex worker and part owner of a play club. During the marketing campaign Navessa Allen kept saying we weren’t ready, and I now understand why. If you are expecting the same fun light comedic dark romance as the first book, you might want to buckle up a little tighter for this one. This one definitely has a darker and more violent vibe and between the plot and spice, Allen is just taking it to the next level. While there are funny moments, they typically come from the side characters and not the main characters themselves. There are obviously some more violent scenes due to the mob background, but even the spice and romance gets kicked up a notch, introducing more kink and BDSM into the mix.

The character vibes are also very different. Junior is not the cute, funny, golden retriever that Josh is. There is a reason the tagline is “Get on your knees and prey.” Junior is a wolf and Lo is his prey. The religious church context also plays a part in the book (I’ll get more into that in the spoilers at the bottom.) Lo is also different than Aly. In Lights Out, Aly was more confident and hyper independent, even in her relationship with Josh, but just threw herself into work because of her past trauma with her mom. Lo’s trauma comes from her background with Junior so while she is confident in herself as a sex worker, she is more insecure being in a relationship. Caught Up is a second chance romance so there are more complex emotions involved since there is already history there. I’ll say, personally, second chance romances are not my favorite, but Caught Up made me re-think the genre.

Overall, if you enjoyed Lights Out and wanted to know if Caught Up would live up to it, it did! Would 100% recommend it and the audiobook was just as great as Lights Out, even with the new narrators.

Format: Audiobook/Kindle

Rating: 4.5 ⭐️

Spice: 4.5 🌶️

Have you “caught up” on this series? ;) Would love to know what you thought of it!

Till next time!

Read more below for some spoiler filled highlights.

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SPOILER ALERT

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Okay, so can I just say as a former catholic school girl, the confessional booth scene… Jesus fucking christ almighty I was squirming in my seat and loved every second of it. All that while little ol’ Nonna was sitting outside the booth had me CACKLING.

The spice level with Velvet definitely kicked the spice in this series up a notch and those scenes were hot… AF. I’m no stranger to reading some smut with some kink but most of the time, you have the MMC/Dom and FMC/sub dynamic (not always, but a good amount of the time). I enjoyed that it was Lo who was in the lifestyle introducing Nico into it. Her comfort in her sexuality, work, and kink lifestyle was refreshing to see in a FMC, and it was fun to read Nico’s POV during those scenes as he was getting introduced to all of it.

I will say I did guess Tyler’s subplot as the one running the gambling rings, but it didn’t ruin anything for me. I did enjoy the “import” and “finance” bit of banter between them. This book was a good set up for his story (which at this point I’m assuming will be the next book). Building Tyler up in two books has me excited and curious on how Allen is going to write him. I also really enjoyed that Aly and Josh were involved in this book and I’m really excited to read when Josh learns about Tyler’s side hustle, especially since Nico knows and didn’t tell him.

I also hope we get more of Nico’s brothers since there was a lot of potential in those characters. The side characters in this book overall were definitely leveled up in this book too! Ryan and Taylor especially were hysterical and perfectly balanced the comedy and lightness and I hope we get more of them in the next book.

Well I’ll leave it at that so I can actually hit publish on this thing and stop procrastinating on it. If you read the book and want to talk about it, would love to hear your thoughts!