Mark

Disturbing at best...

Reviewed: 07-11-23

I am absolutely disappointed by this book. I was so Invested at the start because the concept is actually pretty good, but then I started getting uneasy when terms such as "breeding" and "My female" started cropping up in regards to the Angie, the main character.
And increasingly I got the feeling that the men in this book see the women as objects to be had, even if they go about it in a very "I shall cherish you to death" kind of way. But I tamped this uneasy feeling down until 2 hours left in the book when the main character literally says that alien men own women and that she just had to accept that. I have never been so bloody uncomfortable while listening to a book before.

There is a line roughly at the end of the book where the main female character says "They had assembled a team that will be protecting earth's resource, not oil, not gold, not diamonds or food or water; women!"
This is said as a good thing however it is literally saying that women are a resource. Like what twisted world is this? I seriously cannot beleave I have to be writing this but women are not a resource, we are actual thinking beings that cant be "had" or "claimed". No matter how prettily the author writes this, she is literally saying women are objects even if they are like precious jems. Still objects.

The fact that the author adds in elements that read very much as date rape drugs is bloody crazy. One example is that one species of male is able to literally drug his woman to make her forcefully pliant and eager/horny (even if she didnt agree to it before) to have sex. They are also able to make a woman go limp/daydreamy so they can do whatever they want to her without her fussing. That seems so messed up and I'm not here for it, even if its suppsed to be this cool trick they have so they can properly look after their "females".
There is no out right rape or anything, just all these horrible undertones. I mean, the idea of breeding and owning a woman is bad enough, but even worse is that Angie seems to think this is totally normal even when her man is literally behaving like a feral possesive animal instead of a sentient being with common sense.

I'm not even going to fully get into the scene where the men were acting like the women were little feral pets they had to keep control of and a close eye on just incase they started attacking one another like little Chihuahuas. I think that's enough said about that situation.

Another more minor issue I have with this book is how hetronormative this book is. Everything was "men are like this with women and women are like this with men, and there is no in-between or outlier." It's irritating that this author has chosen to create a world where men are feral and all act the same way and women are just their pawns and there is no imbetween. Like what if there is a lesbian woman among the women who got abducted from earth? Would these men still push her every boundary and try to have sex with her? Or asexual women? Or just women who don't want sex with a bloody alien? Would the "biology" and "instinct" change then?

I hate the way the author went about this story. Promoting shitty behavior is a no-go no matter how sugar coated it is. Disgusting connotations and horribly restricting the characters to all fit into a box that is blamed on "instincts" and "biology" is just the most poor way of writing a book.

Another problem I had was Angie's mannerisms. She acts like a teenager and has the worst reactions to situations she is in. Like she is completely tone deaf.
She also just doesn't seem smart and I don't even know what she looks like besides her "gorgeous mane of locks" which isn't all that much. Also she literally got sexually assaulted and didn't show any signs of PTSD or trauma. She's just a really poor writen character. She feels like she just exists as sex for our much more interesting, if bloody creepy, male lead. (Because he is f-ing creepy when he's that possessive)
On top of Angie not really being a character, the plot is also a bit all over the place, for instance, why did she never ask if there was a way to communicate with earth? Why didn't she ask what planet she was on? Why didn't she insist way sooner to find the other women to rescue them? Why didn't we as the reader get a clear understanding that she was actively hiding the fact that she was human and not the species everyone thought she was? It was kind of just implied vaguely. And that really seemed like an important plot point that was just glossed over.

Also on an after thought, I hate the pregnancy trope with a passion. The whole idea of these alien men behaving like feral animals in heat instead of level headed sentient beings when it comes to having a child bothers me so much. Like what is with this weird "instinctual" erge to pump babies into women like they are breeding cows? Makes me want to puke. We are not animals for the love of all things good, we can actually chose to have kids or not. One doesn't need to ahve kids to have a happy marriage but so many authors seem to think having kids is the be all and end all, or the marriage will fall apart or their life isn't full. Which is crazy, yes children are a blessing but that is a choice and one that shouldn't be forced by a preconceived notion that you have to have kids in order to be happy.

The concept for this book was so good but the weird and creepy undertones are too screwed up for me. I couldn't properly listen to much more of the book without getting both angry and a bit horrified but I did skip around in the audiobook just to see if the book got any less f-ed up towards the end but (shocker) it didn't.

The only good thing about this book was the narration, he did a good job so cudos to him. But yeah that's just about it.

I do not recommend if any of these points I've mentioned bother you.

Anyway sorry about this very long winded (not so well structured) essay rant.

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1 person found this helpful

Ok I guess

Reviewed: 04-04-23

Maybe this was just not for me, but the writing was odd and honestly I couldn't tell what was going on most of the time.
To clarify, sometimes it was hard to follow along the thought process of the main character, he came to conclusions that I would never have come to, and a lot of stuff was just left for the reader to assume. To make matters worse, nothing happens for more than half of the book. There isn't much real conflict and a lot of the time its just the MC cleaning, talking to Bertie and doing mundane things. Kind of boring. Also the whole dragon loving virgins thing cringed me out a lot, and it felt like a big red flag.
Arthur is quick to get jealous but Bertie is even worse and that such a turn off. I can't think of anything worse than an overly jealous person. It's as of Bertie expects Arthur to never talk to any other man ever again. Seriously immature, even with the "Well he's a dragon" excuse that I'm sure people are going to use.
Anyway, I just didn't like the writing style to much, but it wasn't horrible to the point where it's unreadable. The story is ok, I just don't think im going to buy anything from this author again.

The naration was bad, and the way Bertie (The dragon) drags his words out is kind of obnoxious but ok I guess. And the actual audio quality is bad as you can tell by the sample. I recommend listening at 1.25 or 1.30 speed, as the narration is slow.

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One problem

Reviewed: 03-27-23

The audio quality went a bit wonky towards the end. At about an hour and 30 minutes left of the book, the audio sounded like someone had dropped my phone in water so there is water in my speakers, making the audio sound weird. I tried listening through my headphones with the same results, so it's not my phones problem.
This happened 4 times at varying intensity.

Other than that I absolutely LOVE this book and Ira's voice is just, chefs kiss, perfection.

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Mediocre at best

Reviewed: 03-26-23

2.5 stars

This book is just very annoying and badly writen. Jack is insufferable, and doesn't know when to stop pushing against boundaries that D has placed around himself. Jack thinks he has the right to all D's dark secretes. I hate Jack. Period. D is ok and I don't really mind his character but nothing can make up for how bloody annoying Jack is.

The idea of a hit man coming after you is cool and the actual drama and fight scenes was well done, however there was NO chemistry between Jack and D. They just don't work well together in my opinion. Four hours into the book and I just wanted it to be done. The first spicy scene has not a single minute of prep or foreplay, just straight in, if you get my drift, and then it's over in a second. In real life I can imagine that would be extremely painful and just wouldn't work.

The narration is pretty bad. You'd think such a popular book would have had a better narrator.

All in all, I can't see why people like this book. It's truly mediocre and mildly annoying, and I would return it if I could. Don't waste a credit on this.

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Emotionally painful and so beautiful

Reviewed: 02-19-23

Just give it a shot, the premise may sound weird but seriously it's so good, you won't regret it.
Harding does a wonderful job and the author deserves all the praise I could ever dish out, because they wrote possibly the most real and flawed charters I've read in a long timeand it was very refreshing. I can't wait to see how their relationship grows in the next book.

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Almost perfect

Reviewed: 07-26-22

I really liked it, but there were times when I couldn't tell who was speaking. I'm not sure if this was because of the naration or the writing style. Other than that I relaly liked the book and all its sweet characters.

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Very Sweet

Reviewed: 07-25-22

Both the author and narrator are new to me so I was very hesitant, but turns out I love them both! The writing is nice and I really like the main characters. Especially Beatrice; she's such a badass and I love her.
The narrator put a lor of passion and power into his voice and it complemented the various moods of the book quite well. Definitely one of my top 4 narrators.

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Such a sweet story!

Reviewed: 07-06-22

As per usual Michael Ferraiuolo was amazing and emotive!

The story itself was also very good and I loved the main characters. I do have a few problems however; the transitions from one setting to another were not smooth, and I would sometimes just sit there like, "Wait when did we get here?"
Additionally, sometimes I couldn't tell If a character was speaking out loud, or if they were just thinking to themselves. This problem, likely, has to do with the fact that it's an audiobook and would be easier to tell which is which if I were reading on paper.

This wasn't a deal breaker for me and honestly the story was amazing besides those 2 things.

100% recommend.

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politics ruined it

Reviewed: 06-15-22

besides the political drama, it's a great book series
and Heath Miller is an amazing narrator!

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1 person found this helpful

Better than I could have aver expected

Reviewed: 04-17-22

I honestly wanted to avoid this book at all costs, because it's relatively mainstream and quite frankly I don't like mainstream, as it's usually overhyped. In this case I was very wrong. It deserves all the hype it gets.
Luc and Oliver are so complicated and sweet and real, as ironic as that is seeing that they spend half the book being fake boyfriends. They felt so real, and that's honestly refreshing because a lot of authors create these romanticized and overly perfect couples with overly easy relationships that end in a gushy HEA. This was so different and so much more than that. The author made me feel so many different ways about each character and I must say I didn't like Luc much at the beginning but I understand him, and Oliver, so much better now after the author went about their problems so smoothly. And seriously the best friends are so bloody likable. I laughed a lot (Mainly because of Bridget) throughout the book which almost got me into shit at 3am because I almost woke everyone in the house...oops. Anyways, I love this book so much and I strongly recommend it!

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