A review by linelopes
Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat

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

3.25

This book is a weird one to review. 
In one hand I absolutely despise the amount of sexual assault that was portrayed in the pages. In the other, I kept thinking of the book when I wasn’t reading, and I found the reactions of Damian coherent to the over wall word building. 
But one think that I could not get past was how some of the tropes used were deeply uncomfortable to read. The use of barbaric to describe Damian always reminded me of racist ideals and stereotypes, and it doesn’t help that every single white blond character is worshipped by him. It just felt uncomfortable to read this in slave/master dynamic, even if they didn’t technically engage sexually. 

I always saw myself as a tough reader (believe me, I have read some nasty problematic shit in my ao3 days), but to see this tropes articulated in such seriousness, without an recognition of the racial undernotes made me take this read from a solid 4 to a 3. 


This is all to say that I wouldn’t recommend this book for anyone, but I do intend to finish the series. 
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