Stacia in Progress

Rapey. Rapey. Rapey. And a little more rapey - as in "up for a gang bang?" rapey. 

...and not in the implied McGangBang kind of paranormal romance novel writing via Kresley Cole uncomfortable rapey vibes but not actually rape (off topic, but my teenager is obsessed with these sandwiches for some reason).


Uh...no. It was rape. And more rape. And then some attempted rape. 

The most bizarre thing is though, the story was strangely readable in a "train wreck I couldn't look away from" type of deal. 

But yeah. I'm not even gonna rate the story because I don't even know what to say. I went into this as a group read, having been warned that there was non-con, so I can't really go off on a mad tangent if I knew what I was getting into.

The scene with the vampires shrugging off what the sheriff was doing really bothered me, yet there I was a few chapters later thinking that Cole was probably the lesser of all the evils in the book and accepted that he was going to just go ahead and insta-love-bond his way into Rachel's heart...err pants anyway, whether I liked it or not.

Strangely enough, I thought Cole was almost too humanized. This society is down with the gang rape (and the book uses the term several times). So why was Cole almost sort of being pushed as a protector type with no real character development morphing him from bad to good? 

The wtf-ery of not sticking to a "good or bad" ethics system was where the ball was dropped, imo. I say go one way or the other and commit to it. Either be taboo or be romantic. The mashup of cold and warm was a bit odd. 

I didn't like that I had to be told by other people reading the book that the content was rapey. As of Feb. 12, 2014 (this may have changed by the time someone reads my review in the future) I see that on Booklikes the warning is in place, but GR still doesn't have one (and I could be wrong, I'm thinking that this is the book another person complained about not having a disclaimer quite some time ago). I'm sure a librarian could add one, but the author should probably make the request in order to ensure that the warning is to her specifications. 

I wasn't a fan of how the friend was tossed off with no concern. That was a crappy moment which wasn't necessary to the plot in order to show Rachel's individual situation as a breeder.

But I won't deny the strange readability. Because yeah. I was unexpectedly curious to see what would happen next. The story was creepy and weird but it had me turning the pages. Take what you will from that.

I figure there's probably a market for the story, even with the mixed signals. Fans of mate-bonding and super-protective (she's mine!) male types might well enjoy the read if they can get past the graphic rape scenes upfront. Read on at your own risk. O.o

*edit* If you are super curious about parts 2 and 3 (which I didn't review separately, but added to my review for part 1 on Goodreads, you can check out my thoughts at the bottom of this review here : https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/852188282