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A review by eventhedevilreads
Enthralled by Giana Darling
Did not finish book. Stopped at 7%.
The first time I DNFed this book was July 26th 2022. I was very repulsed by the storyline and only made it 26 pages in before coming here to DNF. I didn’t leave a review.
This month I tried to pick it back up again. The anti heroes series was very good and I figured I maybe judged the book too hard the first time around… after making it to 159 pages this time around I realized I did not judge the book hard enough.
This book is flat out terrible. From the premise to the plot to the characters. This is not a romance book of any kind, I think the book would have more success if it fell under a thriller/horror theme. To romanticize sex slavery — which is what Giana Darling does in this book without a doubt — is bad enough. To on top of it have many lengthy rape scenes upon sexual assault scenes AND try to formulate it as consensual is out of this world insane. The message this sends to young women who are incredibly impressionable makes me sick to my stomach. Rape is not to be romanticized. There is nothing romantic about rape.
I can handle a Stockholm syndrome trope — I am a 2013 Wattpad warrior. But this is something else entirely in a very bad way. I’m not one who says away from gore and such (one of my favorite reads so far this year was slut by Dennis cooper) but authors need to present their books as what they are. This story is not love, it is a story about a woman being abused and strong armed into “loving” someone.
Cosima has no substance. What I have learned about her character in 159 pages is that she has daddy issues, is poor and, pretty. The only “internal conflict” (using that loosely) she faces is putting on a front towards Alexander about how much she anticipates their ‘meetings’. There have been plenty of times when Giana could have dived deeper into the psychological effects this has on Cosima. Yet instead we get another smut scene.
It is not enjoyable to read about women crawling around on the floor, being paraded around naked in a house full of people, being starved, abused, and manipulated. I personally would have liked her to be angrier about the whole thing. Coming from Elena’s story to this was incredibly disappointing. Elena was scene as an equal towards Dante. Cosima is viewed as lesser than a stray dog and somehow THATS supposed to make me want the her and Alex to be together? THATS supposed to make me love the the mmc?
Hard pass.
This month I tried to pick it back up again. The anti heroes series was very good and I figured I maybe judged the book too hard the first time around… after making it to 159 pages this time around I realized I did not judge the book hard enough.
This book is flat out terrible. From the premise to the plot to the characters. This is not a romance book of any kind, I think the book would have more success if it fell under a thriller/horror theme. To romanticize sex slavery — which is what Giana Darling does in this book without a doubt — is bad enough. To on top of it have many lengthy rape scenes upon sexual assault scenes AND try to formulate it as consensual is out of this world insane. The message this sends to young women who are incredibly impressionable makes me sick to my stomach. Rape is not to be romanticized. There is nothing romantic about rape.
I can handle a Stockholm syndrome trope — I am a 2013 Wattpad warrior. But this is something else entirely in a very bad way. I’m not one who says away from gore and such (one of my favorite reads so far this year was slut by Dennis cooper) but authors need to present their books as what they are. This story is not love, it is a story about a woman being abused and strong armed into “loving” someone.
Cosima has no substance. What I have learned about her character in 159 pages is that she has daddy issues, is poor and, pretty. The only “internal conflict” (using that loosely) she faces is putting on a front towards Alexander about how much she anticipates their ‘meetings’. There have been plenty of times when Giana could have dived deeper into the psychological effects this has on Cosima. Yet instead we get another smut scene.
It is not enjoyable to read about women crawling around on the floor, being paraded around naked in a house full of people, being starved, abused, and manipulated. I personally would have liked her to be angrier about the whole thing. Coming from Elena’s story to this was incredibly disappointing. Elena was scene as an equal towards Dante. Cosima is viewed as lesser than a stray dog and somehow THATS supposed to make me want the her and Alex to be together? THATS supposed to make me love the the mmc?
Hard pass.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Confinement, Adult/minor relationship, Abandonment, Torture, Misogyny, Gore, Trafficking, Slavery, Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual violence, Sexism, Rape, Emotional abuse, Violence, Sexual assault, Kidnapping, Toxic relationship, and Sexual harassment