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3 Stars: it was awesome and I hated it.

My feelings on this book fluctuated wildly throughout the book. Some of it was due to my real admiration for Catherine, the heroine, and my absolute hatred for the hero, Sean.

Sean is a violent, evil PIG.

Forget falling in love with him, emphasizing with him ... I struggled to even feel as if he deserved to live by the end of the book.

Some readers have pointed out that Sean was "redeemed" by the end of the book. But that is patently untrue. Did he suffer? Sure. But that was KARMA, not justice.

Dude reaped some of the bullshit he sowed. But did Catherine profit? Hell nah. She didn't even get a real apology from him.

Let me list just the crimes Sean committed against Catherine:

*rape
*battery (he slaps her, punches her, bloodies her nose, breaks her ribs while she's pregnant, and also gauds her into taking an unsafe jump with a horse she isn't used to, which nearly kills her, and aborts her child)
*captivity in a cold, damp dungeon (while she's pregnant)
*starvation

and that's without even opening pandora's box of cheating (tm) which Sean is also guilty of, in spades, or the fact that he constantly mocks, belittles and insults Catherine, calling her all kinds of names, treating her in ways no paid prostitute would willingly put up with.

So yeah, I think Sean should'nt have survived the book. He is an insult against human dignity and I hate him. No amount of suffering can ever wipe his vest clean and the fact that he hardly ever repented the times (yes, plural!) he just about murdered Catherine make him the WORST.

Even the most horrible villains ostensibly love their families, but Sean is the opposite: he hates everyone, but the one woman he supposedly loves is the one who gets to suffer the most under his random tantrums. With a man like Sean you don't need enemies, he is a one man army hell-bent on destroying your life, killing your babies and cheating on you with a smirk on his face.

Die, Sean, you snivelling, ugly monkey.

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This book cover is haunting me, so I redrew it with simple cartoon art:



Let's face it, if this wasn't the Stormfire, I would have dnf'd this ages ago. Sadly I am resolved to read this, no matter how much I hate all of the characters, the patriarchy and the message that all brute rapists have a sad sob story that makes it all okay.

I just want all of the men to die, and frankly most of the women as well. People have been criticizing the heroine, Catherine, who is 16 (!!) and very sheltered, but still manages to survive all the crap they throw at her.

Leave Catherine alone! She's doing her best and honestly she should stab Sean in the face with knife. He isn't fit to lick her dirty ENGLISH boots, bye

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I'm spitting mad at every single man in this book. I want them all flayed, then burned, then quartered

DIE DIE DIE YOU EVIL MONKEYS

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Ah, the classic honor and revenge plot.

Our women and children got raped and killed so let's get back at the perpetrators by raping their women and children

Of all the flawed revenge logics, this is one of the worst, because the actual women and children who got raped in the first place get nothing out of it, while the original perpetrators don't actually suffer, but instead new victims are made.

The western/christian idea of honor, in its basis, is that only the male family members have honor. And their honor can be tarnished by proxy: if a woman of the family gets raped, she ruins the family's reputation: that is, the honor of her male relatives. They must seek revenge. So if they are to weak to strike in an actual blood feud against the (male) perpetrators, they target the weakest links instead: the women an children. Like the male relatives of the original victim, the perpetrators are vulnerable through their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.

Today there is talk of "honor killings" in families of muslim faith. But the western idea of honor is no less toxic or violent in its root.

Women are objects with price tags and owners. They have no agency or honor of their own. Their innocence or culpability doesn't matter. I suppose the most honorable thing to do for a woman who gets kidnapped and raped is to commit suicide.

Needless to say I hope the 16 yr old heroine goes on a murder spree.



It's very early into the book and the poor girl hasn't been abused too much yet but I am already up on the barricades over the sexist creep men in the story.

The GALL of them, kidnapping a young girl on her way to SCHOOL and then getting upset that she dares to fight back despite being a lady!

I hope she gets to kill some of them at the very least.