Review: You won't be able to look away...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 22, 2012
OMG!! This is the worst AND best book ever. I never highlighted so much in one book before.  If you have a problem reading about brutal rape and violence...then this book is NOT for you.  If you can get past that...this is a beautifully written story (it is NOT a beautiful story...that is a major difference I learned reading this book).  I am going go cover the rest of the review...just in case this is not your cup of tea.Imagine waking up in the middle of the night with a stranger inside of you.  Your being raped...you struggle but it is no use, and he won't stop until you reach your pleasure.  That is what happens to her...I say her because this was the most vague and descriptive book I have ever read.  I don't know anyone's name.  There are two characters...her and him.She worked analysis for an agency.  "They" hired him to "Break Her".  To crush her spirit and believe me...he tries.He is a professional.  He knows how to rape, how to humiliate, how to beat...how to crush your will."Maybe the Devil appeared in a billion different forms, and this man was merely one of them.""This guy liked to hurt on at least two levels at once.  Either making you like it when you didn't even want to do it in the first place.  Or making you hate it because he could be as brutal as he could be kind."The things he did to her were brutal...it was so hard to read."Torture was the pain that wouldn't stop, overt and unstable and overwhelming everything else."She had to think...how could she survive??  Naturally, I think she wanted to appeal to him, to make him care so that he wouldn't be so brutal.  In a way...she did."Sometimes I think I love the women that I'm trying to destroy."She was so witty and strong, she was a breath of fresh air to him."Everybody's a critic.  Please submit a list of acceptable words and phrases I can use to show you that I hate your guts."He didn't let this deter him though from his goal.  She tried though, to make him feel..."You realize, of course, if you do win, I can't afford to let you live.""Oh, honey," was her reply, "if I win, you won't be able to imagine living without me."I loved how this book had so many movie/tv show references.  I think this was the light-hearted part of the book and they used these quotes to try to explain their feelings.  My favorite:"Were you ever a Buffy fan?""Uh. No."She said: "I sacrificed Angel to save the world.  I loved him so much.  But I knew...what was right.  I don't have that anymore.  I don't understand.  I don't know how to live in this world if theses are the choices.  If everything just gets stripped away.  I don't see the point.""...""Who was Angel?""Angel is anything you loved that you gave up because you thought there was a reason, a purpose, that is was worthwhile."I looked forward to these parts.  To this parts that he was sweet and really tried to get to know her.  To learn about her troubled past.  She was hurt by someone she trusted, loved while she was younger which could explain why she was so strong in this situation..."Grownups, expect betrayal.  What they can't stand to be is powerless.  That's what destroys them."But then he would be horrible again...He raped her in every way imaginable.  She would often lose herself, close her self off in her mind just to get through it.  She would contemplate rape..."Rape was the strangest crime of all.  All the fundamental acts that make for a rape...if carried out under other circumstances, would be a pleasure, not a pain.  There is no other crime like that.""...was it that there was something about someone going inside you, against your will, invading not just your house or your car, but your most private, secret, personal place, that was so different?""Was it the violence mixed with the threat or the intrusion into the most private part of a woman, the part that's supposed to be for pleasure?""Some people used to think that men raped because they couldn't get a woman to give it up voluntarily, but that was never it all.  They wanted what didn't wan them."She would try to reason, why he was the way he was, what drove him to be this monster..."You can try to calculate the underlying, psychological motivations:  abuse as a child (a) plus the desire to turn one's own violent impulses toward good (d) multiplied by the frustration of never being able to trust anyone (t) divided by remorse (r) minus necessity (n).  Maybe with the right formula, you could approximate the reasons."She tried everything she could think of to get him to feel..."You think you'll eventually satisfy me, and reach the end of this.  But everything you do makes me want you more, deeper, impossibly more."What she went through was horrific.  You felt sick to your stomach reading some of the scenes.  You desperately wanted him to give into his feelings for her and change.  You wanted him to die a horrible death.  There were times he was good but most times he was evil."Good has always compromised with evil.  Made deals, negotiated, peacefully co-existed.  When it's been realistic."This book is a roller coaster of emotions.  A car wreck you can't look away from.