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A review by wjreadsbooks
Captive by Aimée Carter
2.0
While I wasn't completely sold on [b:Pawn|10838787|Pawn (The Blackcoat Rebellion, #1)|Aimee Carter|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1374097236s/10838787.jpg|15753006], the first book in the Blackcoat Rebellion series, I thought that the series seemed intriguing enough. I really wanted to know where Aimee Carter was taking the series and how Kitty was going to grow into her new role as Lila Hart. Unfortunately, this book was a bit disappointing because there seemed to be a huge disjoint between Kitty's personality in the first book and her character in this one.
Captive continues two months after the events of Pawn, with Kitty learning how to take over Lila's role in the Hart Empire. It seems like a lot has happened since her adopting Lila's personality but nothing much has changed. Kitty and Benjy are no closer to reuniting with each other and have to be careful about being spotted in public. Kitty wants to help the Blackcoats but is too busy having to play People's Princess of the Empire and Knox, her supposed financee, and the leader of the Blackcoat refuses to let her into his plans for their future.
When Kitty gets caught carrying out an ill-conceived plan, Daxton Hart uses the opportunity to accuse her of treason and Kitty's sent to Elsewhere, a prison where nobody has ever escaped and where there's no humane treatment for the prisoners. Kitty thought that life as a III was bad but she has no idea how miserable prisoners in Elsewhere really have it. As Kitty fights for her chance at survival and adapts to Elsewhere, shocking truths about her past are revealed.
Like I said before, I don't know what happened to Carter's characterisation of Kitty! While Kitty was a little bit impulsive and too self-sacrificial in the first book, she still seemed rational and had her head together. But she really lost it in this one. Kitty's peevish about having to stay on and pretend to be Lila as well as frustrated at Knox's secrecy and I found myself really annoyed by how childish she seemed here. Kitty was bullishly determined to prove to everyone that she had the ability to be part of the Blackcoats and really didn't care about Knox's (well-justified) worries. What happened to looking at the big picture? And Kitty, you chose to stay on and be Lila. It's only been two months since you agreed to that. What did you expect? That everything was going to fall into place immediately?
And it didn't help that Carter decided to introduce many new characters in this book either. The problem with having to build up an all-new cast for a book under 300 pages is that the characters don't get properly fleshed out and I didn't end up connecting with any of the new characters. I can't believe that I'm saying this but I actually missed Benjy a little bit in this one because at least I felt something about his relationship with Kitty (even if that something I feel is annoyance). And poor Knox, he was the only person that I actually felt had some complexity and depth to his personality. I really would've loved to see more of Knox, more of his rationality and intelligence and less of Kitty's impulsivity and rashness.
As for Elsewhere, this was a place that we barely got to explore in Pawn. While the prison seemed a bit cartoonishly evil in the first book, I thought that Carter did a relatively good job at describing the horrors of the prison and how people are forced to adapt and change in Elsewhere. The problem is that not much else happens in the book. There's hardly any conflict and everything important is packed in the last third of the book!
And I'm starting to realise that introducing a "twist" at the end of the story is Aimee Carter's style, because there's another one included in this book to get us to keep reading. I'm really not sure if I want to keep going with the book, given my disappointment with this one, and there are A LOT of other good books out there in the world. I guess I'll just wait and see what happens.
Spoiler
Especially since by the end of the last book, we figured out that Daxton Hart was also an imposter and was faking his amnesia.Captive continues two months after the events of Pawn, with Kitty learning how to take over Lila's role in the Hart Empire. It seems like a lot has happened since her adopting Lila's personality but nothing much has changed. Kitty and Benjy are no closer to reuniting with each other and have to be careful about being spotted in public. Kitty wants to help the Blackcoats but is too busy having to play People's Princess of the Empire and Knox, her supposed financee, and the leader of the Blackcoat refuses to let her into his plans for their future.
When Kitty gets caught carrying out an ill-conceived plan, Daxton Hart uses the opportunity to accuse her of treason and Kitty's sent to Elsewhere, a prison where nobody has ever escaped and where there's no humane treatment for the prisoners. Kitty thought that life as a III was bad but she has no idea how miserable prisoners in Elsewhere really have it. As Kitty fights for her chance at survival and adapts to Elsewhere, shocking truths about her past are revealed.
Like I said before, I don't know what happened to Carter's characterisation of Kitty! While Kitty was a little bit impulsive and too self-sacrificial in the first book, she still seemed rational and had her head together. But she really lost it in this one. Kitty's peevish about having to stay on and pretend to be Lila as well as frustrated at Knox's secrecy and I found myself really annoyed by how childish she seemed here. Kitty was bullishly determined to prove to everyone that she had the ability to be part of the Blackcoats and really didn't care about Knox's (well-justified) worries. What happened to looking at the big picture? And Kitty, you chose to stay on and be Lila. It's only been two months since you agreed to that. What did you expect? That everything was going to fall into place immediately?
And it didn't help that Carter decided to introduce many new characters in this book either. The problem with having to build up an all-new cast for a book under 300 pages is that the characters don't get properly fleshed out and I didn't end up connecting with any of the new characters. I can't believe that I'm saying this but I actually missed Benjy a little bit in this one because at least I felt something about his relationship with Kitty (even if that something I feel is annoyance). And poor Knox, he was the only person that I actually felt had some complexity and depth to his personality. I really would've loved to see more of Knox, more of his rationality and intelligence and less of Kitty's impulsivity and rashness.
As for Elsewhere, this was a place that we barely got to explore in Pawn. While the prison seemed a bit cartoonishly evil in the first book, I thought that Carter did a relatively good job at describing the horrors of the prison and how people are forced to adapt and change in Elsewhere. The problem is that not much else happens in the book. There's hardly any conflict and everything important is packed in the last third of the book!
And I'm starting to realise that introducing a "twist" at the end of the story is Aimee Carter's style, because there's another one included in this book to get us to keep reading. I'm really not sure if I want to keep going with the book, given my disappointment with this one, and there are A LOT of other good books out there in the world. I guess I'll just wait and see what happens.