Scan barcode
A review by mejisilliterate
Corrupt by Penelope Douglas
Did not finish book.
0 stars obviously but that’s not why i’m here.
I just want to point out a recurring theme that i’ve noticed throughout not just penelope douglas’ books, but the new steamy-tik tok genre as a whole.
The idea of what consent is is majorly fucked up within all of these books. They all have scenes that are inherently non-consensual, but even bigger than that is the authors trying to convince us that those scenes are actually practicing consent.
In this book, I couldnt help but laugh at the stupidity of it all when the horsemen (stupid fucking name by the way) went through with their plan, but michael, suddenly, pulls out and isn’t ok with it because “she’s not on board” and they “only said they’d do it if she was on board”. that’s practicing consent, right? wrong! because the plan was literally to rob this woman of all her possessions, kidnap her mother and then her, hold her against her will and “make her theirs” (heavily implying they are going to use her as a sex slave, although thats never said explicitly, probably to try and convince the readers that somehow they will just be nice and kind to this girl! even though they’ve talked the whole book about “what they want to do to her”!). what kind of idiot would ever truly believe she would consent to this! the only reason michael backed out is because this freak damon almost rapes our protagonist, which michael suddenly objects to, even though the entire book damon was saying that that was exactly what he was gonna do once they kidnapped her. multiple times in this book we see damon assault girls but it’s treated as unimportant and merely a character flaw rather than a huge fucking problem that makes him a deranged lunatic. for gods sake, he knows how to roofy someone! why are you friends with this man!
as tik tok makes these types of books more known to younger people, it’s important to recognize that the depiction of a messed up form of consent has extreme ramifications. rape is never justified, ms douglas.
(look at the content warnings and tell me how the fuck this is marketed as a romance)
I just want to point out a recurring theme that i’ve noticed throughout not just penelope douglas’ books, but the new steamy-tik tok genre as a whole.
The idea of what consent is is majorly fucked up within all of these books. They all have scenes that are inherently non-consensual, but even bigger than that is the authors trying to convince us that those scenes are actually practicing consent.
In this book, I couldnt help but laugh at the stupidity of it all when the horsemen (stupid fucking name by the way) went through with their plan, but michael, suddenly, pulls out and isn’t ok with it because “she’s not on board” and they “only said they’d do it if she was on board”. that’s practicing consent, right? wrong! because the plan was literally to rob this woman of all her possessions, kidnap her mother and then her, hold her against her will and “make her theirs” (heavily implying they are going to use her as a sex slave, although thats never said explicitly, probably to try and convince the readers that somehow they will just be nice and kind to this girl! even though they’ve talked the whole book about “what they want to do to her”!). what kind of idiot would ever truly believe she would consent to this! the only reason michael backed out is because this freak damon almost rapes our protagonist, which michael suddenly objects to, even though the entire book damon was saying that that was exactly what he was gonna do once they kidnapped her. multiple times in this book we see damon assault girls but it’s treated as unimportant and merely a character flaw rather than a huge fucking problem that makes him a deranged lunatic. for gods sake, he knows how to roofy someone! why are you friends with this man!
as tik tok makes these types of books more known to younger people, it’s important to recognize that the depiction of a messed up form of consent has extreme ramifications. rape is never justified, ms douglas.
(look at the content warnings and tell me how the fuck this is marketed as a romance)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment