Author: kalaxis

Genre: Action

What I liked about this book:

Thea seems conflicted and that is something that would be interesting to explore. Her past in an abusive household coupled with this new asshole of a guy could be something that could be written about in a nuanced and fascinating way.

What I did NOT like about this book:

But it wasn't.

Thea's father is a cartoon villain, and the author failed to capture any sort of nuance in his abuse to her. In the fifth chapter he's pounding her head against the floor, something that doubtless should have killed her, and I have a hard time believing that with this kind of abuse coupled with her skipping classes, that no teachers would have noticed what was going on at home.

Slick is an asshole who steals her books, steals cars, torments her, and kidnaps her, but we are supposed to buy him as a legitimate romantic interest who she is very clearly slowly interested in. Red flag. Stop there. Slick is also abusive. We shouldn't be painting him as a shiny bad boy love interest, and the fact that this is happening makes me cringe hard.

The story kind of meandered past that. I have no sympathy for Slick or his wanting to find Mason, because I just want him to fall into a ditch. The writing was dry and pretty uninteresting, listy, and for long stretches of time nothing happened.

This COULD have had nuance if it investigated how Thea fell into the arms of another abusive man after her father's abuse, but it didn't. The book completely missed any chance at introspection and instead went for the shitty bad-boy love angle.

I hope no young people read this and think it's something to emulate.

Overall:

Abuse fetishization is something I absolutely will not tolerate.

Rating:

4/10 for the writing itself. 1/10 for the plot. This is twilight 6.7, and we don't need more of that shit.