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A review by narmaeth
Tortured Heart by Anne Hall
3.0
It's a solid 'ok'.
So I loved, loved, loved the communication between her and her guys. They straight up tell her what's going on and don't purposefully keep information from her. They give her space and help her when she spirals. They help her learn to be a person.
This is neither good nor bad but the book very much reminded me of the kind of fanfics I'd read as a teenager, beautiful but tortured heroine with guys fawning over her who is rescued from her terrible situation and is perfect at everything she does. Even her animal, a demonic kitsune, sounds like someone's oc off of deviantART.
It hit the nostalgic part of me well enough to enjoy it but I know people might not appreciate this.
Obviously there are issues with the book.
The book is in dire need of editing. Sometimes you'll see different people speaking dialogue in the same paragraph which is very confusing. Sentences would repeat the same words, a minor thing but I felt this could have easily been prevented with a little work.
Heroine has been through extreme abuse and torture, yet somehow is completely fine climbing all over the boys because they're her ~fated mates~. It just made her trauma feel... shallow? I'm unsure what word to use here but I would have liked to have seen them work with her towards feeling comfortable with touching them.
It's mentioned once or twice that she's emaciated and underweight, yet somehow the boys are talking about how sexy she is? It felt very uncomfortable and harmful. Save the 'she's so sexy' for when she's a normal, healthy weight.
The plot is pretty all over the place.
I don't know why she had to meet the boys in highschool because there are just so many flaws to this idea. How did her abuser even get her in there when she can't read or write? You'd think after having the forethought to hide the heroine for this long that they'd think of how to prevent her from outing herself as illiterate and there being something wrong.
The highschool aspect of the plot is forgotten almost immediately, is the school not concerned that she was there for a few days and then just... what?
Two of the biggest problems I had were that
1. she's a white girl and yet somehow a kitsune? A mythological creature of Japanese folklore? We have enough interesting mythological creatures in western cultures, there's no need to go appropriating.
2. She can somehow learn fighting techniques by watching someone a few times and then execute the moves perfectly. Come on, make her work for it.
So I loved, loved, loved the communication between her and her guys. They straight up tell her what's going on and don't purposefully keep information from her. They give her space and help her when she spirals. They help her learn to be a person.
This is neither good nor bad but the book very much reminded me of the kind of fanfics I'd read as a teenager, beautiful but tortured heroine with guys fawning over her who is rescued from her terrible situation and is perfect at everything she does. Even her animal, a demonic kitsune, sounds like someone's oc off of deviantART.
It hit the nostalgic part of me well enough to enjoy it but I know people might not appreciate this.
Obviously there are issues with the book.
The book is in dire need of editing. Sometimes you'll see different people speaking dialogue in the same paragraph which is very confusing. Sentences would repeat the same words, a minor thing but I felt this could have easily been prevented with a little work.
Heroine has been through extreme abuse and torture, yet somehow is completely fine climbing all over the boys because they're her ~fated mates~. It just made her trauma feel... shallow? I'm unsure what word to use here but I would have liked to have seen them work with her towards feeling comfortable with touching them.
It's mentioned once or twice that she's emaciated and underweight, yet somehow the boys are talking about how sexy she is? It felt very uncomfortable and harmful. Save the 'she's so sexy' for when she's a normal, healthy weight.
The plot is pretty all over the place.
I don't know why she had to meet the boys in highschool because there are just so many flaws to this idea. How did her abuser even get her in there when she can't read or write? You'd think after having the forethought to hide the heroine for this long that they'd think of how to prevent her from outing herself as illiterate and there being something wrong.
The highschool aspect of the plot is forgotten almost immediately, is the school not concerned that she was there for a few days and then just... what?
Two of the biggest problems I had were that
1. she's a white girl and yet somehow a kitsune? A mythological creature of Japanese folklore? We have enough interesting mythological creatures in western cultures, there's no need to go appropriating.
2. She can somehow learn fighting techniques by watching someone a few times and then execute the moves perfectly. Come on, make her work for it.