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

dark 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

3.75

It's hard to put into words my feelings for this book. It reads a bit like fanfiction in that there are a lot of aspects of the world that seemed underdeveloped. And for a first book, while it definitely felt intriguing, I felt needed more to be able to call it a book with a plot. So when I found online that the story had originally been posted on Livejournal as a serial it made a lot of sense. This doesn't feel like a book so much as the 1st part of a story. 

The sexual content also weighs the book down, I was thinking "do these ppl do anything else?" And again that made the world building feel underdeveloped. But it mostly goes away in the second half and that's around when the actual plot of political intrigue begins. I wouldn't have planned on reading the next books in the series based on the first half, but the second does have me hooked. But this book for sure isn't like, high literature. It's pulp.

Big trigger warnings for sexual abuse.
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