Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Captive Prince

Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat

54 reviews

madzcp's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This series is my all time favorite. I reread them almost every year. The subject matter can be challenging to read, and is presented in a controversial way. However, it is MEANT to be that way. People who give these books bad reviews, but have not read all three, should not be condemning them for the trigger warning type content. It is addressed in the future books. There is purpose to the content. It is meant to make you uncomfortable.

Content Warnings

tragedies's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Captive Prince was recommended to me many years ago by an internet friend. At that time, it was still an ongoing series. I don't know what possessed me to start reading it the night before my exams, but I did. I ended up finishing both books in two days and spent the next weeks reading them all over again, making Damen & Laurent playlists on 8tracks (Spotify wasn’t a thing yet lol), and scouring Tumblr for theories on the upcoming finale. Since then, I've reread the series dozens of times, though never with a physical copy. This is my first time doing just that, and it’s the most surreal experience.

“...To have lost so much and gained so much, all in the space of a moment.”
“That is the fate of all princes destined for a throne,” said Laurent.

With the Akielon king dead and the throne usurped by his half-brother, Damen finds himself captured, enslaved, and shipped off to Vere, an enemy nation. He may be a formidable warrior, but none of his past battles could have prepared him for the Veretian court, brimming with decadence, depravities, and deadly political machinations. Stripped of his crown and identity, he is gifted as a pleasure slave to the beautiful yet cunning Prince Laurent, heir to the throne of Vere. Damen immediately dislikes him, judging him to be a spoiled, arrogant royal who shirks from his duties and delights in the suffering of others. Laurent’s icy persona and unyielding cruelty does nothing to dispel this notion, affirming the worst of Damen’s prejudice against Veretians. Powerless at the hands of this new master and a foreign court, all Damen can do is obey. Or, at least, he tries to.

Though the first book mostly serves as a set up for the rest of the trilogy, what makes it so addictive is Pacat’s clever writing. Every word is deliberate, a force of its own meant to add nuance and create depth yet at the same time elude readers until the story unravels on its own. Unremarkable at first glance, these details hidden in plain sight pack quite a punch in due time, making the later arcs more powerful and emotional. I know the Captive Prince trilogy like the back of my hand, but I swear, every time I reread the books, I find myself utterly gobsmacked by the little details that somehow escaped my notice. It makes me appreciate the story and the characters even more than I already did.

“And what did it mean, to be a prince, if he did not strive to protect those weaker than himself?”

And do not even get me started on the characters. I love how flawed they are and how the book unapologetically explores these flaws. I love Damen, but what I love even more is how his greatest strengths are also his weaknesses. He is so sure of his convictions, that when he is confronted by something that disproves them, he answers with an almost bull-headed defiance that at times blinds him from seeing the truth. He was “born to rule” as Jokaste said, a crown prince who had the natural air of a king, the endless adoration of his countrymen, a household of servants and slaves at his beck and call, and a father who taught him to bow to no one, even enemy princes. He was privileged and entitled, and now that he’s put in a position where he isn’t, he realizes he knows very little of the world beyond his status and culture. We witness these harsh realities alongside Damen, watch as he weighs in what he knew before as heir and what he was experiencing now as a slave. We feel our perspectives shift just as he does when a newfound realization dawns on him — he was not the only captive prince ensnared in this intricate web of politics and power.

If I love Damen, I love Laurent even more. He is definitely one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. At this point in the trilogy, we’ve yet to uncover the other layers of his character. Damen first described the enemy prince as a nest of scorpions, and to some extent it’s true. He’s cold, cunning, and cruel. Many of the things he did in the book were horrible and by no means inexcusable. However, in a culture whose language is deception, in a court that glorifies cruelty and makes a spectacle out of it, it’s no wonder why Laurent acts the way he does. That doesn’t mean that this is all there is to him though. Laurent is more than just a nest of scorpions, and Damen himself will be a witness to that.

“I can't protect you as I am now, Laurent had said. Damen hadn't thought about what protection might entail, but he never would have imagined that Laurent would step into the ring on his behalf. And stay in it.”

There’s no romance yet in the first book. Personally, I like it because Pacat really takes the time to flesh out the “enemies-to-lovers” trope, which I'm a huge fan of. I’ve read tons of books with this dynamic, but I find that they all too easily overlook the "enemies" part. Captive Prince embraces it, revels in the slowburn to portray the complex yet surprisingly natural chemistry between Damen and Laurent. There's more of it in the next book, but there are flickers of it here in the first — small moments that I appreciate more now, knowing full well the weight they hold in light of the entire trilogy.

Honestly, this is my least favorite in the series but only because it pales in comparison to the next books. However, for what it is, it's clever and well-written, a masterful exploration of character, deception, and what it means to be shackled by people and prejudice.

Content Warnings

lily_west's review against another edition

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challenging tense slow-paced

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

4.0

I was super prepared to not like this book, because I’d been warned so much that it was divisive. But honestly? The content, while certainly dark, is still not much darker than anything you’d get in a Game of Thrones episode. And the writing is much better. The characters are interesting and mysterious, the prose is deceptively simplistic, and Pacat really knows how to hold back a revelation/plot twist until it’s a perfectly-timed punch to the face. I feel like I need to reread just so I can catch all of the subtle foreshadowing. I’m so intrigued by both Damen and Laurent, because I feel like we hardly know them at all, and I’m fascinated to see them interacting more. My only complaint is that this book could’ve easily been longer and therefore had a bit more plot to it. Definitely going to read the sequel, and I recommend this to readers that aren’t squeamish. Mind the content warnings, though.

Content Warnings

zeppelinnyx's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

Content Warnings

sophie42's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

Content Warnings

josoko's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

3.25

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nolimalumsedheroa's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense

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

4.25

Who doesn't like a slowburn enemies to lovers?

Side note: I'm currently lacking in sleep, so this review might be a hot mess

I'm not really a fan of some of the sexual interactions, but I really loved the characters. This book was great, because it got me out of one of my biggest reading slumps yet.

DEFINITELY NOT FOR EVERYONE
In contrast to the overall smuty/eroticay vibe, the book almost doesn't feature sexual content, HOWEVER when it does, it might be a little triggering to people.

Here are my personal TWs/tags: Master/slave kink, CNC, Rape, Pedophilia?(I'm not entirely sure if this is the correct tag here. On the one hand, one of the people involved in the relationship is a minor, however they're very much consenting to everything and if the story said they were 20 instead of 13, it wouldn't really change a thing since they don't act infantile at all... I guess a main question is if they're able to consent), also I found allusions to familial SA; Voyeurism could be also argued, Public play

As I said, I loved the characters. Himbo and 🐍 are so complimentary of each other when you truly observe them, it's fascinating.

If you're in the mood for a smuty and horny book low on sex displays which would make a Christian woman clutch her pearls and start crossing, I feel like this book fits the bill.

Also, it did better than FSoG with explaining the contract relationships, so there's that.

There were some... choices made here, which made me quote one of the most iconic lines Jenkins (from The Librarians) has ever said:
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Overall, I liked the book 4.25/5

Now off to the next one since the insomnia isn't going away 🙂

Content Warnings

louisa_pennyfeather2021's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

ailsaod's review

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challenging dark fast-paced

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

4.0

Haha I read this in a single sitting! I have been curious about this book for a while as I was drawn to the secret identity aspect and the controversy about whether this series is problematic. All the reviews I've seen here are either saying this book is disgusting or romantic but I personally found it very t e n s e. The setting is extremely messed up (going into it I had no idea just how messed up it was going to be and I cannot stress enough that it gets a bit grim in places) but all the depravity allows for especially convoluted court dynamics and when you realise certain characters' motivations all I could think was OH NO! I'm almost left wondering if Pacat wrote this purely so they could write the courtly intrigue.

The interactions between Damen and Laurent are interesting as while I can tell from a mile off that they are going to eventually have a romance from what kind of story this is there was barely any hints at that in the whole book and instead the focus is on how much they hate each other and Laurent being horrible in the strangest of ways. Everyone in this story is to some degree awful - even Damen, who is much more sympathetic than everyone else because we see exactly what he is thinking has moments that when you have the whole context are not great. I really liked how Pacat turned everything on it's head in the third act and I look forward to reading book 2!

Content Warnings

ara02's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Content Warnings

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