Captive Prince

I wish I could remember why I thought I'd want to read this. Or why I struggled through it after all the rape and child sexual abuse and awfulness. Not to mention the clumsy writing. Weirdly I still enjoyed it and kind of even want to know what happens next in the story. Not enough to read through all the violence, sexual and otherwise. As a rule I don't read this kind of thing and I wish I'd stuck with it.

The good: the main character's narrative voice is strong and strange but compelling. I like the complexity of his relationship with his captor. Clearly they're building to an enemies-to-lovers kind of thing. Also the pacing was strong enough the book kept my interest. It's mercifully short.

The bad: I just can't enjoy the central latent romance because part of "the setup involves torture, enslavement, sexual humiliation. And not in a fun kink way. It's hideous.

Also the bad: the writing is not good. The prose flows OK but is not particularly literary or evocative. Sometimes important things are glossed over and only explained pages later. And weirdly the author throws in some 50 cent SAT word, vocabulary far too erudite for the rest of the writing. As much as I like obscure words it just breaks the narrative voice and feels like someone showing off.

Anyway this book was sort of entertaining and sort of appalling and overall I'd rather be spending my time on higher quality writing.