Review: Promising Plot but Needed More Julius
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2014
***Contains Some Spoilers…Aquilla has grown up an unconventional life. She’s the non-biological daughter of Romano Chavez, a leader of a drug cartel and sex slave/prostitution business.  She’s been privately tutored all through school and given limited access to friends. She is always accompanied out by a bodyguard in one form or another.  But she has had one constant companion in her life— Julius, the person who has always looked out for her, the brother that has helped raise her, though it is clear they are not blood related.When their island home/compound is raided, Aquilla’s life and everything she knows is turned upside down. She finds a friend and ally in a foe and discovers her birth parents and the story of what happened when she was 3. Returned to the family that she was separated from, Quill learns she is not even 18 and is given no choice but to return to her biological family that she never knew existed and complete high school, though she has been schooled well beyond public education.I honestly felt bad for Quill and rooted for her to return to her old life with Julius, as dangerous and criminal as it was. Quill is tough and appropriately immature and mature for her age all at the same time. Her upbringing and experiences make her a fish out of water with her dysfunctional real family, who I struggled to find likeable. They were real; they just weren’t people that I wanted to see Quill assimilate with.Then there is Seri. Without giving away her role, Seri is a complex character. While I personally did not like her and found her to be a hypocrite, other readers may not feel the same way.  If nothing else, I felt her role in everything that turned Quill’s world upside down was too easily forgiven by Quill and brushed aside (particularly the reveal that Julius provides).This is a hard book to rate. On one hand the plot is engaging and has major potential for a gripping story, but at the same time the execution is flawed in places. The romance aspect is interrupted for an overly extended period of time for the story of Quill’s return “home,” which while interesting in the beginning, drags on after a while, bogged down with Quill’s daily existence and way too many comments about her wanting to smoke pot. There is no romantic story in this section, just simply contemporary fiction.Content wise the material is raw in many places. As part of his father’s business, Julius trains some of the chattels. He has a threesome with Quill and a chattel. While Julius is faithful to Quill in his absence, Quill has sex with another older boy.  Quill is turned on to marijuana by an FBI agent.  Professionally, Monica should come forward with all that she knows but doesn’t seemingly to protect her friend. IMO, Seri corrupts Quill far worse than Julius ever did.Narration wise, it is, at times, all over the place. Told with a 3rd person omniscient point of view it quite frequently throws in 1st person stream of conscious thoughts to the extend that can cause the reader to have to stop and consider whose thought it belongs to. This is particularly noticeable in the first part of the book that sets up the feelings and relationship between Quill and Julius. There are some grammatical/writing issues as well.Despite the dark, and potentially taboo, aspect of their relationship, Julius and Quill do have chemistry while at the same time exhibiting a strong love for each other. Julius’s letter to her is sweet and heart-breaking, and reveals a side to him not developed in the earlier portion of the novel while they were on the island.It is an emotional story—sad at times, frustrating at times, and grippingly sexual in places. It is thought-provoking, making the reader question the definition of a loving, “normal” family as well as other conventional norms of schooling, socialization, identity, and relationships.Stand alone book, no cliffhanger, HEA!3.75 Stars