Review: Beautifully written, but the characters were not the strongest
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 19, 2014
I didn't love the first book in this series - Theo felt harsh (altho he has grown likeable in this book), and Jason feels equally as harsh in this book.  Lemaitre is also harsh and unlikable.  Sara was sweet but immature.  It's hard to love a book when the main characters don't strongly pull on your emotions.It was pretty much love at first sight between Jason and Sara when he picked her up at a sex club in Ulan Bator, so there was no real development of a relationship so you could get invested in either one of them.  They just mindlessly in love it appears because they both wanted a TPE with lots of harsh beatings and they were both physically attracted to each other.  For someone who had spent her whole life in relative deprivation in Mongolia, Sara never once demonstrated culture shock while in France - in fact, she behaved exactly like a Westerner throughout the book.  Jason was willing to give up his whole life to follow her wherever she wanted to go - sweet, but felt strange given the TPE dynamic.The plot tension - will she perform up to standards? will "daddy" ever love her? - were never in doubt, so without character tension or plot tension, this book was carried by the excellent writing not often seen in this genre.I'll read the next one because I love Annabel Joseph, but I have to say the Ballet series stands head and shoulders above this series.