Review: Spoilerish. Captivating world building
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 10, 2012
When I put down the book, I confess I was a bit disappointed, but there was something that I felt was trying to get through, then I slept on it and I think I got it. So, I'll split my review in two:My first shallow reaction.In the future mutated crops are affecting people's personality, interfering with their brains and attitudes: Some people become more dominant, becoming aggressive in a few cases; some people become submissive, almost losing any self-affirmation will in very rare cases. Connor is like this: he has become a submissive and he's the coveted prey of all the people with more dominant personalities. His former boyfriend had developed an aggressive personality and hurt him badly. Now Connor is with no protector and he gets the attention of Emmett Drake, a security expert. Connor's boss, David Martin, in an attempt to protect his employee, claims him as his boy, but since he's straight and in love with a woman, he won't claim him sexually, and he'll look for the right master for Connor.If we look at the outside world, people like Connor are slowly losing their civil rights and they're being turned into property. On one hand legislators want to protect them, on the other hand they think they're too easily manipulated and therefore they are treated as second class citizens. Connor is affected by what he hears on the news. He would like people to see behind the new trait of his personality, but people just look at him and see an object to use. Only David seems to be able to treat Connor as a person, and even if he doesn't want Connor in a sexual way, he comforts him. Connor can't help feeling protected by the man and he develops a feeling of worship. Emmett though elicits something darker in Connor, sexual attraction and the desire to be owned by the man.I confess that I didn't like Connor. All I could see were his tears, his breaking down, his clinging, in a word, everything we can associate to weakness. I found the other two man more riveting. David is sincere in his desire to protect Connor, but he's maybe also fooling himself when he thinks that there is no sexual feeling involved. Emmett wants Connor in a very simple way, but we can also see that he doesn't want Connor only to break him, he also wants to cherish him for his submission.At the end of the book, after a bit of smut fest, but I'm not complaining about it, I was feeling rather meh, because instead of moving forward, Connor kept retreating. I would have given the book three stars for the great world building, that I felt was unfortunately more promised than delivered, but there was something original. Then I slept on it and woke up with a revelation.The I-hope-I-got-it-right-and-it's-not-wishful-thinking part of this review, but I guess it's spoilerish, so read at your own peril.You know what? I think I was witnessing the dissolution of the last straps of Connor's will because of the mutation. Connor had been trying to hold on to his individuality, but in the last chapters he was becoming more clingy, because he was losing his will, he was becoming a sort of mindless submissive. It's very chilling and it's worrying. And brilliant and clever. It puts everything that happened before into a different perspective and it made me hurt for poor Connor and feel pity for him. I still think there was something off here and there, and the blurb is more clear on certain aspects of the story than the whole story, but if I'm not reading too much into this, this interpretation gives me more satisfaction, even if I don't think it's very romantic. 4 stars.