Reviews

Auctioned by Cara Dee

mzanger's review

challenging dark fast-paced

4.25

zuza_za_bookami's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

bettyswan_reader's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

🌶🌶

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Confinement, Death, Violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Torture, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Trafficking, Gore, Kidnapping, Sexual content, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Slavery, and Murder

mdee's review

4.0

4.25 stars

ankysbookbubble's review

5.0

Oh man. This was gritty and warm and sweet and scary, and I can't wait to get to book 2.

leatherbee's review

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

lazulis2's review

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

3.5

xi_mi's review

4.0

3.5

lezreadalot's review against another edition

3.0

“The only thing I wanna pretend is that we’re not here. We’re somewhere else.”

3.5 stars. A pretty interesting dark romance. I think there are probably similar stories out there, but it's the first of its kind that I can remember reading. Gray is a victim of human trafficking; stolen from his home town and shipped off with a bunch of other guys to be sold as a slave. He ends up in a romance with Darius, the retired mercenary his family hired to find and rescue him. It's obviously really dark and really intense and the book follows them as they try to formulate a plan to escape the yacht where Gray and all the other victims are being held. 

I'm not really one for dark romance, but even though this was really upsetting, I did enjoy the story. It helped that you can tell that a decent a amount of research was done, and also that the romance takes a backseat for a while. In a situation like this, it has to. Anything other than slow burn would have felt weird and wrong. On the flip side, this is forced proximity, and Darius is undercover, and has to put on a show so that the other buyers and the slavers have no reason to doubt him, and that creates interesting and horrible scenarios. I really like books that explore relationships that develop under duress and hardship and trauma, and this was definitely that.

This didn't totally suck me in though. I did like the writing, but narratively, it was just a little jarring sometimes? Like, I feel like things would happen or things would be planned, but they wouldn't be communicated to the reader very well? The last 25% or so would have benefitted from some more clarity. I understand that there were some things that Gray didn't know, but the things that he did know, the reader should have known too. You know? And I wanted a little more development from the romance, and I wish a few things had happened differently.

Listened to the audiobook as read by Alex Kydd, which was pretty okay. Not my favourite voice, but not bad by any means. This is the first in a series that follows Gray and Darius (no obnoxious cliffhanger at the end of this one, thankfully) and I'll definitely come back to it! I just need a break first, lol. I'm too baby to read a bunch of dark stuff back to back.

Content warnings:

Spoiler

kidnapping, violence, beatings, sexual slavery, rape, paedophilia, drugging, death, gore

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litas_reads's review

adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0