So, this isn't going to be a review, per se. I will compare this to 50 shades, but not just because of the erotic elements. This book will have a polarizing effect like 50 shades. Some readers will LOVE it and some will HATE it. I don't think there will be much middle ground. Me-50 shades wasn't f0r me and neither was 365 Days, but I don't think that makes it a bad book.

The story has the Italian Mafia, kinky sex, Stockholm syndrome-Its like an episode of a TV show except the villain is a hottie. It made me think about Criminal Minds. If Mossimo and Christian were fat, ugly guys living in a trailer, the story would be an episode of Criminal Minds. But, because they are hot billionaires, we make it a romance where they are the hero. Again, no judgement here. The story is dark; darker than 50 shades. Readers gobbled up 50 shades and there is certainly a market for it! There is plenty of hot sex and dark romance here that readers will enjoy.

The story ends with quite a cliffhanger that will have you wishing you read Polish to get the next book. If you decide to read this, know that it is a translation. It's a Polish woman writing writing about an Italian mafia man. The content is dark and there is a lot of dubious consent (frankly, some straight up non consent) issues in my opinion. So, as I said before, I'm not actually rating this book because it isn't my type of read. I think there is a market out there, but because its super dark, I think it will be smaller than the 50 shades market.

If you are looking for a total escape read and are willing to suspend reality and wished 50 shades was darker, give 365 Days a shot! If you are curious, give it a shot. If it's not for you, check out another book and move on, happy in your decision.

Yes, I have watched the movie and a small, small part of me was hoping that the book would be better than that, however, I was completely disappointed with this book, but not surprised.

This story is translator from Polish to English and there are some issues when it comes to that, but for the most part it was easy for me to ignore them. However, the story itself is just not something I could enjoy. I love mafia, dark, bdsm books but this book was just lacking in a lot of aspects of the story.

365 Days had potential and could have been amazing, however the story just fell flat for me. I’m sure there are people who will love this story and people who don’t. Just not for me.

Laura is living a contented, relatively uneventful life in Warsaw until a trip to Sicily with some friends for her birthday. A man sees her arriving at the airport and swears she is the woman of his literal dreams. Now that he’s found her, it’s time for her to belong to him.

If a man is obsessed with a woman, kidnaps her, stops others from coming to her rescue, and threatens to kill her family if she tries to escape, this is not romantic, no matter how rich he is. Someone wanting to be with a woman that much sounds like he may truly love her, but taking these actions to eliminate her choice in the matter makes it abuse instead of devotion.

That being said, the steamy scenes were definitely steamy, if a little repetitive. Hopefully Laura and Massimo can find that they have something in common besides chemistry as the series progresses. The cliffhanger at the end definitely left this book open to proceed in a variety of directions for books two and three in the trilogy.

Overall, I give this book 2.5 out of 5 stars. Those reading it should be under no illusions of it being a romance. Rape is depicted repeatedly, even if Laura claims to have changed her mind as the act progresses. A reader who understands what they’re getting into and likes similar fiction stories may enjoy this one as well.

I wanted to like this. My friend saw the movie, and, knowing how much I love a steamy romance, suggested it to me. Well, I'd always prefer the book so I was glad to get a chance to read it. Now, I don't know if the translation just was off or what, but I didn't love it. Things happened abruptly and not in a delicious build up kind of way. And, I kind of ended up skimming a lot. It is a dark mafia romance and people went crazy over the movie, and I did like some things. Like how the heroine is always smacking him and she's pretty sassy. Just wasn't for me, I guess.

Thank you Netgalley and Atria Books for the #gifted ARC of this ebook.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 Stars
🔥🔥🔥🔥 4/5 Steam Rating
𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚃𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚜

Let me start off by saying that this is a Dark Steamy Romance. If that is not your thing, then this is NOT a book for you. If you do not like to read about roughness or sometimes questionable acts, this is definitely not a book for you. This is not a book that contains characters that you’d want for your children to hook up with, there is no Prince Charming among these pages.

In this book, Massimo (head of a Mafia family) kidnaps Laura and make her commit to staying with him for 365days, in the hopes that she falls in love with him.

I’ve been hearing about this movie for MONTHS, so when I saw that it was also a book I jumped on it! This book is the first in a trilogy that was originally written in Polish, so I did give a bit of leeway to the writing as I would any other translated book.

Overall I thought this book was interesting. Let’s be real... when I read smutty books (especially dark smut), I’m not looking for writing that’s earth shattering or revolutionary, I just want a story I can escape into for a little while. I appreciated that this sorry tried to balance a story both inside of the bedroom and outside of it. There were some parts that could have been edited down a bit since they weren’t overly relevant to the story as a whole, but I also appreciated that the author didn’t get lost in the weeds and overly describe situations that’s weren’t needed. I was surprised that there wasn’t a bit more steam to this book, I expected more time to be spent in the bedroom than they did. With that said, I still thought it was an entertaining read and had a fair amount of steam.

Now let’s talk about the show... don’t do it!! It was TERRIBLE!! I was so disappointed, it felt like a cliff note version with bad acting and a completely different ending. Don’t waste your 2hrs.

Yes I saw the movie first.
Enjoyed it somewhat but felt the movie was too choppy in storyline so I requested to read the book because I wanted to find out more about the world the author created.

This book was a very slow read. It was hard to keep focused trying to grasp the story. It just did not grab me.

Storyline is choppy like the movie, characters are too fixated on fashion and brand names. For Laura's illness described in book, I found it hard to follow this story with her being drunk or passed out all the time.
Massimo is another story. His chemistry with Laura was lacking. I thought they would be hot and heavy but they just fell flat.
I almost DNF but I stuck it out and finished because my curiosity of wanting to know how it ended and if it was like the movie. Nope not what I was expecting in this book.

Disappointed because with all the hype of this book because of the movie, I thought the translation of this book would be a good but it just didn't. Still missing tons in the plot and felt the translation of this book may have been rushed or literally lost in translation.

I say watch the movie instead of reading the book

While I watched the movie before the book, I was excited to read the actual book. Translation was spot on. The only downfall is I felt it read to literal. The concept is there but something was missing for me. There was no magic in the concept as it all felt stilted and forced. I did really enjoy the storyline though.

Very Poorly written, even with a translation. Requested based on the excitement for the story and the talk about the Netflix series. Incredibly disappointed. Story was disjointed, characters flat, and story just boring.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! No spoilers. Beyond amazing I enjoyed this book so very much. The characters and storyline were fantastic. The ending I did not see coming Could not put down nor did I want to. Truly Amazing and appreciated the whole story. This is going to be a must read for many many readers. Maybe even a book club pick.

I decided to request this one after watching the movie on Netflix then learning it was based off a book! Of course I had to get my hands on it. Total 🔥🔥.

I went on a requesting binge on NetGalley and 365 Days has an interesting cover proclaiming it a #1 international bestseller with a Netflix movie based on it. Obviously I was out of my mind with covid brain fog when I requested this book since I don't remember reading the synopsis. I never would have seeing that I absolutely detested Fifty Shades.
I was going to dnf, but after discussing this with another Netgalley user, I decided to give it another try. While it's still not really my thing, it's not as bad as I originally thought it would be. I will upgrade my original rating to a 3 star and apologize for not giving this book a fair chance.

Where to start? Where to start????

Last year when the movie was hyped and hyped and hyped, I was there for all the little previews. I'm sure I would have watched without subtitles just b/c YES! Then Netflix picked it up and I waited and wanted. Still watching little bits and pieces floating around the interwebs.

Netflix hit and BOY I made a night of it. And was hugely disappointed. I found Laura so weak and not a herione at all, mostly a damsel in distress the entire time. Yes Massimo was/is hot and ALPHA, but he was also sorta kinda and loving. HE had character growth, she did not. So I thought well, the book is always better than the movie so I'll wait for the book to see what was removed and hoped Laura was just written wrong for the movie.

NOPE! The book is just as bad if not worse. I'm not sure if it's the translation or not. But the first few chapters felt like someone just watched the movie and typed out what was happening. Laura is still horrible. Massimo is still HOT but there is zero likeability for really either. Add in the very huge lack of sex like the movie and well. DISAPPOINTMENT of the highest level.

Ok onto the horribleness of Laura. She complains to Martin about his drinking. Yet she is either drunk, passed out, or worse BLACK OUT DRUNK most of the book. She flees and runs. She SLEEPS a lot. She has a heart condition yet is always drunk. I just could not relate to her at all and wanted to slap her, and take Massimo for myself.

I was expecting a HUGE cliffhanger (again the movie) this was so lack luster. The book just isn't better and the movie wasn't that great to begin with.

I love Domenico. If HE were a main character then YES please.

First off, this book needs triggers. It was horrible. The plot was terrible, the writing was horrible and the characters were flat. Do not recommend.

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.

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.