Review: only OK
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 18, 2014
Again, I thought this was an OK read. (I'm seeing a trend.) Cassie has been held captive and experimented on for 5 years, she's attempted escape before, somehow she's established a contact to help her give it another go, and here the book starts. This is all basically explained, but like the prequel, it feels very much like we started in the middle of something. A lot happens off set, so to speak.I liked the story, I really did. I liked Cassie and Seth, I really did. But believable emotions were relatively scarce in this book. I mean, it pretty much boiled down to, "Oh, you accidentally made me a superhuman...OK, moving on." There was no fear, freakout, anger, really no emotional response at all.Then there was the 'romance;' if I can call it that. The two of them seemed to have an inexplicable pull towards one another. It felt very much like a standard PNR, 'you're my destined mate' kind of affair, but that's never addressed. Worse yet, it employed the whole 'Oh, I'm having a really erotic dream that I'm somehow mysteriously aware of' trope. When of course, he's awake; of course he's really having real sex, not dream sex. As if that kind of thing EVER happens. It just felt like a cheap plot device to get them past the awkward 'I won't sleep with someone I just met" hurtle.The sex...it too was OK, though there was a lot of it. There was also a weak attempt to add kink to the sexy bits by "fingering her puckered hole" and blindfolding her, etc. I'll give it props for not being wholly vanilla, but this is supposed to have been a virgin having sex with a man for the first time or two. You'd think one of them would have been a little hesitant and none of that was really necessary in the first place. Honestly, it just didn't feel at all natural. There were too many heavy 'do you trust me?' pauses followed by pretty light stuff. Meh.I also had some basic questions. For example, I was curious about Seth's age, for two reasons. One, Cassie is apparently supposed to be 22. (She's 17 at the time of the prequel, and book one is set 5 years later.) So, I would expect Seth to be comparably aged, but he can't be. He's a war correspondent, so one would expect he graduated HS (18ish), got a journalism degree (22ish), got a job and worked his way up the ranks, since being sent to Afghanistan, Serbia and Rwanda (all of which are mentioned) aren't newbie assignments, plus the time spent there (5 years minimum, probably significantly more, so at least 27). Two, he acts and speaks like a teenager. Bottom line is that he's either significantly older than Cassie, but acts younger than his age or is supposed to be young like her, but then can't hold the professional position he's supposed to. *scratching head*I'll also throw one personal irritant into the mix. I get tired of seeing men teach female characters things they should already know. (It happens all the time in fiction. Men, after all, supposedly have all the answers for us little helpless lasses. grrr) Here, Cassie had had at least some of her powers since she was a teenager and had been training with them and the scientists who created them for YEARS, but within 2 days Seth learned how to use his AND taught Cassie how to improve her own skills in ways she and/or all those well-educated, experienced professionals couldn't? Realistic or just the normal 'the man always has the answer' BS? He was then unquestionably in charge, coming up with the plans and giving orders. Again, Meh.The book has a sappy ending that I think it could have done without. But I know a lot of readers really like that kind of thing, so OK. It could have done with a little more editing, but the writing is actually pretty good.All in all, I liked the premise and liked the characters, but the execution was rushed and weak. Not so much that I wouldn't recommend the book, but enough that it felt like I was just reading the surface of something.